Interesting Articles: August 2007

Sociology:
* Weighting for Friends: Obesity spreads in social networks (Science News). In short, if your friend becomes obese, you become more likely to gain weight as well. While not surprising, it's cool that they actually gathered enough data to prove it. What I found more surprising is that (i) the effect is equally strong regardless of distance and that (ii) the effect doesn't appear for people you're around a lot but don't consider a friend (e.g., a neighbor). It's also neat that obesity mainly spreads via same-sex friendships. Although the Science News article is freely available online, if you desire you can also refer to the source article, The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years (New England Journal of Medicine).
* Oldest siblings show slight IQ advantage (Science News). Note that the effect, though small, comes from social birth order, not physical birth order. (I.e., children who become the oldest after the death in infancy of an older sibling also display the advantage.) The source article, Explaining the relation between birth order and intelligence (Science), has the full details.

Maintaining Health:
* Lobes of Steel (New York Times). Exercise: it'll make you smarter.
* Easing Jet Lag By Resetting The Body Clock (New York Times). A handy, though old, article that describes how to carefully control exposure to light in order to reset one's circadian rhythm quickly and thereby avoid jet lag.

Food:
* Sour Genes, Yes—Salty Genes, No (Science News's Food for Thought). Liking of sour foods is mostly genetic, yet liking salty foods is more environmental. This partially explains similarities in taste within families. Incidentally, I'm surprised to read sensitivities to these flavors can differ up to two orders of magnitude between individuals. I know (and am jealous of) people who are substantially more sensitive to tastes than I am, but wasn't aware the differences could be that large.

Biology:
* Bad News for Cats: Cat allergen hits all allergic people (Science News). In short, even if you're not specifically allergic to cats (but are allergic to other things), something about cats will aggravate your other allergies and impair your lung function. Hmph. The abstract of the source article, Bronchial responsiveness in atopic adults increases with exposure to cat allergen (American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine), is available online.
* High Volume, Low Fidelity: Birds are less faithful as sounds blare (Science News). Noise pollution has some subtle, unexpected effects. The abstract of the source article, High levels of environmental noise erode pair preferences in zebra finches: Implications for noise pollution (Animal Behaviour), is available online.

Climate:
* Summer Reading: The Heat Is On (Science News). A concise summary/review of the book Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate by William Ruddiman. Ruddiman's theory is thought provoking: that humans have been affecting climate for millennia through activities like rice farming, deforestation, and, well, mass human deaths through plagues.

Physics:
* Dropping the Ball: Air pressure helps objects sink into sand (Science News). About what happens when one drops a ball into sand at various air pressures (e.g., on other planets). I find the results pretty surprising. I can't explain the results concisely. If you want a copy of the Science News article, do as you would with any other Science News article and simply ask me. Or you can read the dense and technical source article, Gas-mediated impact dynamics in fine-grained granular materials (Physical Review Letters).

Education:
* More math helps young scientists (Science News). If only the study were causal. The one sentence abstract of the source article, The two high-school pillars supporting college science (Science), is available online.