Is there a scientific basis to EHarmony?

Derek Lowe is more hopeful than many of his colleagues.

Michael Shermer, who has a new book out on the subject of the evolutionary basis of markets, has a piece on why we often make foolish economic decisions. Envy counts for more than money, apparently.

[Update a little after noon]

More evolutionary psychology: why the pill has reduced the need of men to marry.

I’ve often pointed out that the people who really change society are not the politicians and ideologues, but the engineers.

[Update in the afternoon]

I thin that the first article provides a good example of why, despite their irrationality, socialism and wealth redistribution schemes are so intrinsically appealing to so many, and why they won’t die out, despite their manifest empirical failures. Too many people would prefer that everyone be poor than that a lot are wealthy while a few are superwealthy. Which is sort of depressing, because it means that the ideological wars over this will go on as long as human nature remains what it is.

That’s Joe Katzman’s comment at this interesting post by Donald Sensing on a major asteroid impact in North America thirteen thousand years ago.

…the worst consequence of the cataclysm was the mass extinctions of the late Pleistocene that have heretofore been attributed to overhunting by the Clovis peoples of the continent. The extinctions were additionally blamed on the Younger Dryas. The new impact theory, though, says that the comet’s multiple explosions (caused by its breakup in the high atmosphere) themselves caused the extinctions: “at least 35 genera of the continent’s mammals went extinct

That’s Joe Katzman’s comment at this interesting post by Donald Sensing on a major asteroid impact in North America thirteen thousand years ago.

…the worst consequence of the cataclysm was the mass extinctions of the late Pleistocene that have heretofore been attributed to overhunting by the Clovis peoples of the continent. The extinctions were additionally blamed on the Younger Dryas. The new impact theory, though, says that the comet’s multiple explosions (caused by its breakup in the high atmosphere) themselves caused the extinctions: “at least 35 genera of the continent’s mammals went extinct

That’s Joe Katzman’s comment at this interesting post by Donald Sensing on a major asteroid impact in North America thirteen thousand years ago.

…the worst consequence of the cataclysm was the mass extinctions of the late Pleistocene that have heretofore been attributed to overhunting by the Clovis peoples of the continent. The extinctions were additionally blamed on the Younger Dryas. The new impact theory, though, says that the comet’s multiple explosions (caused by its breakup in the high atmosphere) themselves caused the extinctions: “at least 35 genera of the continent’s mammals went extinct

More evidence that Omega-3 is good for you:

Fish oil and its key ingredient, omega-3 fatty acids (found in fatty fish like salmon), have been a mainstay of alternative health practitioners for years and have been endorsed by the American Heart Association to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Fatty acids like DHA are considered “essential” fatty acids because the body cannot make them from other sources and must obtain them through diet. Years of research have shown that DHA is the most abundant essential fatty acid in the brain, Cole said, and that it is critical to fetal and infant brain development. Studies have also linked low levels of DHA in the brain to cognitive impairment and have shown that lower levels may increase oxidative stress in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Based on the positive results, the National Institutes of Health is currently conducting a large-scale clinical trial with DHA in patients with established Alzheimer’s disease. For those patients, Cole said, it may be too late in the disease’s progression for DHA to have much effect. But he is hopeful that the NIH will conduct a large-scale prevention clinical trial using fish oil at the earliest stages of the disease — particularly because it is unlikely that a pharmaceutical company will do so, since fish oil in pill form is readily available and inexpensive.

There are a lot of other reasons to be consuming Omega-3. This is just one more.

Political correctness is damaging young boys:

Research by Penny Holland, academic leader for early childhood at London Metropolitan University, has also concluded that boys should be allowed to play gun games.

She found boys became dispirited and withdrawn when they are told such play-fighting is wrong.

But you can bet kids will continue to get suspended for as little as drawing pictures of guns.

Remember this the next time someone complains about a Republican war on science. Yet another reason to get the government out of the schools.

It’s a little harder to mount a suicide naval attack using cheap boats now. The US Navy is using remote control machine guns. This technology on land vehicles improved force protection in Iraq too.

A mathematical analysis that I’d always assumed was the case, but had never actually seen. This is where smarter cars could help.