Letters to the Editor
Rachael F.
Published Letters: 157 Editor's Choice: 17
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Behavioral scientist checking in....
[Read the article: I've been lying about my drinking. How do I live with the guilt?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]More specifically, behavioral geneticist, PhD, studying the mechanisms of the effects of alcohol.
Rob is distinctly mistaken on at least one front:
"The craving that you feel for booze is just your mid-brain setting off the same alarm it would if you were starving, dying of thirst or suffocating. It is telling you that your body must have the substance. Behavioral scientists call this "the Addictive Voice.""</>
In fact, addiction is (scientifically speaking) an actual need by your brain for the drug. Among its many effects, alcohol specifically blocks the receptors in the brain for a particular neurotransmitter. As an adaptive response (in order to try and regain normal function), the brain produces more of these receptors. When you then stop drinking, there are far too many receptors than are required for normal function, and the only way the brain can function normally is with the application of alcohol.
This is just one of many examples - alcoholism and addiction in general are the result of changed brain chemistry such that normal brain function requires the drug.
This is not to say that we understand all of the motivating factors - but it is to point out that it isn't just an "alarm".
From a scientific standpoint, there are in fact many peer-reviewed articles that show effectiveness of programs like Alcoholics Anonymous for some people. The key is SOME people. No one technique works for everyone. But AA does work for many people.
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Well, actually:
[Read the article: Want a boy? Change the kitty litter]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If it's been rejected by 8 journals, it's likely that 8 different groups of parasitologists have decided that his study is flawed and that his results don't mean anything. I.e. his conclusions are b.s.
People who get their papers rejected may like to pretend that they are persecuted geniuses, but most of the time a paper gets rejected multiple times, it's because it's total b.s.
What he said was specifically that the study had been rejected "usually without any formal review", which is more likely to mean they didn't find it relevant or interesting enough to publish in their specific journal. You only get rejected for scientific reasons after a journal has sent your paper out for review.
Of course, there is that "usually". This means at least one journal has rejected it through the peer-review process.
Thing is, if it's a one-off piece of data, without any real proposed mechanism, it's likely gonna be hard to find a journal that will publish it.
As for sex ratios, there's a slight M-F advantage at both conception and birth - 105 males for every 100 females. This being largely due to the fact that Y-bearing sperm have a slight advantage, being slightly faster swimmers. More males tend to die than females, evening out the sex ratios by age 15, and longer lifespans make the ratio about 72 men for every 100 women after the age of 65.
And, yup, to the person who said that the effect would have to be due to preferential miscarriage or some similar phenomenon, because the sperm ratios wouldn't be affected.
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Agreed
[Read the article: Death threats dog female blogger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ben Dover, I've read the link, but would you please also copy and paste the part where it indicates proof Sierra has lied and fabricated threats? Also, rageboy is not a widely known authoritative source. What are rageboy's credentials and substantiating sources?
I have also read both Sierra's and rageboy's blog posts, and have to agree that rageboy presents nothing that appears to "prove" anything. Nor does he seem, IMO, to be trying to prove that any of the threats are fabricated. Unless I got lost somehow in blogspace (which could happen), the post is merely about defending himself against accusations that he supported the threatening behavior. He doesn't deny it ever happened, much less provide any evidence for such a denial.
On the topic itself - my personal opinion of the material is that it certainly falls outside the norm for even vitriolic flaming. I understand why Sierra would feel threatened, and would be worrying whether I ought to just ignore it, or whether it could be indicative of actual danger. As to misogyny - yup, it qualifies. It qualifies because of the gender-specific nature of the insults and threats, and because of the implication of potential sexual violence. It'd be racism if someone decided to "criticize" a blogger via specific reference to aspects of their race, and it's misogyny when the insults are specifically referencing her gender and sexuality.
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Oh, and by the way....
[Read the article: Death threats dog female blogger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In my part-time life as a board moderator, I find that the best way to deal with trolls is not to feed them.
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Imprinting
[Read the article: Self-fertilizing females to take over the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Because of a phenomenon called genomic imprinting, male and female genomes do not contribute equally to development, so parthenogenesis is more or less impossible. Haven't read the UK reports, but I would be suspicious that the sperm generated from female stem cells would have a truly "male" epigenetic imprint on them. Without going into the gory details, but let's just say a healthy degree of skepticism is called for here.
While that's largely accurate, it's incorrect in one very important detail: Gametogenesis (the making of sperm or ova) reverses the original genomic imprint and "applies" the correct one for the sort of gamete that's being produced. We can't know until we do the experiment, but as a PhD geneticist, I'd say the odds are 50/50 that imprinting will be done correctly in the sperm.
We just can't know without doing the experiment.
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And also
[Read the article: Self-fertilizing females to take over the world]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First: fetuses start off female
Actually, no. Mammalian embryos start off with BOTH sets of, for want of a better phrase, plumbing. Wollfian ducts (male, ultimately) and Mullerian ducts (female, eventually). Also an "indifferent gonad" - which has the capacity to develop as either testicles or ovaries, but does neither without the proper signals.
Nature's first choice is both - you need to send "on" signals to develop the correct plumbing, and "off" signals to ensure the regression of the other plumbing. If all of that doesn't come off smoothly, you get some variety of intersex, or XY female, or XX male....