Interesting Articles: August 2nd-14th 2006

Food & Health:
* Mad cow disease might linger longer (Science News). In short, the only other known prion disease in people has a long incubation period, suggesting that possibly mad cow disease has a similar length one. Scary. Details available in the source article: Kuru in the 21st century: an acquired human prion disease with very long incubation periods (Lancet).
* In utero factors shape responses to stress, sugar (Science News). In short, eat healthy, balanced meals. In long, children of women who ate a high-meat, low-carb diet while pregnant can, even now that the children a middle aged, be distinguished in terms of stress response from women that ate balanced diets while pregnant. Details in the source article: Maternal consumption of a high-meat, low-carbohydrate diet in late human pregnancy programmes cortisol responses to stress testing in adulthood (Endocrine Society).
* For portion control, look to the container (CNN). It's not new news, but still a fun warning piece nonetheless. The ending section is the most interesting.

Medicine:
* Statins might lower risk of cataracts (Science News). Sometimes drugs have unknown benefits. Posted for the readers of this blog that take a statin.
* Letters (Science News, login required - no alternative). Some follow-up to the mighty mouse article from this previous past.

Mathematics:
* Chaotic Chomp: The mathematics of crystal growth sheds light on a tantalizing game (Science News). Solely posted because it's about combinatorial games. I'm surprised to see this in such a prominent news magazine; I saw a preliminary version of it presented at a conference and it got a fairly lukewarm reception. In short, they don't have many results other than some pretty pictures and some "probabilistic" results that says certain things are likely true. Nothing very rigorous.

Science:
* Out of Sight: Physicists get serious about invisibility shields (Science News). Very cool.

Psychology:
* Why people punish (Science News). In short, punishment people mete out usually depend on retribution, not deterrence. Details in the source article: The roles of retribution and utility in determining punishment (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology).

Culture:
* Pornucopia (WNYC's On The Media via NPR). On how the food network is like porn. The audio has some segments (excerpts from shows) that aren't in the transcript; I'd advise listening to the program rather than reading the transcript.