Sure, We Can Build a Better Toilet. But Will People Use It? | Wired Science A latrine over water in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Photo: Remik Kaupp/Flickr The Gates Foundation’s plan to build a better toilet has inspired optimism for the future of sanitation in the developing world. But if history is any guide, good intentions and clever engineering aren’t enough. “You need a good engineering solution, but there’s also this behavioral and social science problem,” said Mushfiq Mobarak, an environmental economist at Yale University. Mobarak is supported by the Gates Foundation in studying how best to promote the new toilets. Mobarak’s most recent study, on the use of clean cookstoves in Bangladesh, holds useful lessons for the Gates Foundation’s sanitation engineers, and for anyone interested in technological solutions to problems in the developing world (or, for that matter, the developed). The problem was, and still is, dirty cookstoves: the open fires and smoke-billowing stoves, fueled by wood or coal or dung, used by nearly half the world’s population.
I Human Engineering and Climate Change Abstract Anthropogenic climate change is arguably one of the biggest problems that confront us today. I. Anthropogenic climate change, or climate change for short, is arguably one of the biggest problems that confront us today. The risks of the worst impacts of climate change can be lowered if greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere can be reduced and stabilised. There is lively debate in the relevant literature about these different kinds of solutions. In this paper, we explore a new kind of solution to the problem of climate change. To be clear, we shall not argue that human engineering ought to be adopted; such a claim would require far more exposition and argument than we have space for here. II. To start, it will be helpful to have some possible examples of human engineering. Pharmacological meat intolerance Making humans smaller Another more striking example of human engineering is the possibility of making humans smaller. III. IV. Safety
10 Mind-Boggling Psychiatric Treatments by Dan Greenberg Nobody ever claimed a visit to the doctor was a pleasant way to pass the time. But if you're timid about diving onto a psychiatrist's couch or paranoid about popping pills, remember: It could be worse. 1. The coma-therapy trend began in 1927. 2. Ancient life was not without its hazards. 3. Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin was a physician, philosopher, and scientist, but he wasn't particularly adept at any of the three. 4. If the word "hydrotherapy" conjures up images of Hollywood stars lazily soaking in rich, scented baths, then you probably weren't an early 20th-century mental patient. 5. Much like Yoda, Austrian physician Franz Mesmer (1734-1815) believed that an invisible force pervaded everything in existence, and that disruptions in this force caused pain and suffering. 6. Ah, if only we were talking about a therapy for malaria. 7. Nobody ever said doctors had flawless logic. 8. 9. 10. After the lobotomy rage hit American shores, Dr.
The Drug That Never Lets Go Photo By @FatTonyBMX Dickie Sanders was not naturally prone to depression. The 21-year-old BMX rider was known for being sweet spirited and warm -- a hugger not a hand-shaker. Yet on Nov. 12, 2010, Sanders was found dead on the floor of his childhood bedroom. PBS NewsHour Science Support Provided By The National Science Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the S.D. The suicide was the culmination of five days of strange behavior that began shortly after Sanders snorted a powdery substance he bought from a friend. “I don't like the way this is making me feel," Sanders told his stepmother, Julie, as the two awaited his release from the hospital. But the paranoia flared up with a vengeance that night, and back home, Dickie's father lay in bed with his son, arms wrapped around him, until he finally nodded off. An autopsy revealed a powerful stimulant in his system: methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV. Users 'Tear at Themselves'
How Memory Works: 10 Things Most People Get Wrong Human memory and recall works nothing like a computer, but that’s what makes it all the more fascinating to understand and experience. “If we remembered everything we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing.” ~William James It’s often said that a person is the sum of their memories. Despite this, memory and recall is generally poorly understood, which is why many people say they have ‘bad memories’. Here is my 10-point guide to the psychology of memory and recall (it is based on an excellent review chapter by the distinguished UCLA memory expert, Professor Robert A. 1. Everyone has experienced the frustration of not being able to recall a fact from memory. So it seems obvious that memories decay, like fruit going off. But what on earth is the point of a brain that remembers everything but can’t recall most of it? 2. Obviously the only one that’s of interest is the most recent. 3. There’s another side to the fact that memories do not decay. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
It Begins: Pedophiles Call for Same Rights as Homosexuals Excerpted from the Northern Colorado Gazette: Using the same tactics used by “gay” rights activists, pedophiles have begun to seek similar status arguing their desire for children is a sexual orientation no different than heterosexual or homosexuals. Critics of the homosexual lifestyle have long claimed that once it became acceptable to identify homosexuality as simply an “alternative lifestyle” or sexual orientation, logically nothing would be off limits. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. B4U-Act calls pedophiles “minor-attracted people.” In 1998 The APA issued a report claiming “that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from childhood sexual abuse experiences.” Pedophilia has already been granted protected status by the Federal Government. Dr.