Original Article: Morewedge C.K. et al., Science 330, 1530 (2010).

If you’ve had a chance to visit the Fatih district in Istanbul, then you have probably seen the famous mosque called “As If I Ate” (Sanki Yedim Camii). The history of the mosque is at least as interesting as its name: Kececi Hayrettin Efendi, who lived in Istanbul in the eighteenth century, led a frugal life and used to save the money he could have used for pleasures like good food. Each time he went into a restaurant, he self-suggested “as if I ate” and assumed himself full. Years go by, and one day Kececi Hayrettin Efendi decides to count the money he saved this way. Surprisingly, he realized that he had saved enough money to build a mosque. Research conducted by Carnegie Mellon University behavioral scientists has shown that Kececi Hayrettin Efendi’s “as if I ate” approach might also be a useful way to curb one’s appetite. During the study, a group of volunteers was asked to imagine eating lots of sweets repetitively before eating as many M&Ms as they like, while a second group was asked to imagine inserting coins into a laundry machine. It turned out that the group that imagined eating sweets ended up eating significantly fewer M&Ms compared to the second group. The researchers performed the same experiment with variety of foods and showed that individuals who continually imagined eating a food many times actually ate less of the imagined food than did individuals who imagined eating that food fewer times, imagined eating a different food, or did not imagine eating any food, showing the effectiveness of the “as if I ate” approach.

2- The Brain Confirms: Learning to read knows no age limit

Original article: Dehaene S. et al., Science 330, 1359 (2010).

In this age of science and technology, education affects everyone drastically. Besides getting a better job or a higher social status, knowing how to read has important beneficial impacts on brain functions. In a new study, cognitive neuroscientists identified active regions of the brain in the event of reading. Three groups (illiterate, literate who learned reading at adulthood and literate who learned at childhood) were compared for their brain activities using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study has not only helped to illustrate the complex neural circuitry of the brain, but has also demonstrated superior brain functions in literate groups, such as responses to visual and spoken stimuli. The real surprise of the study was that people who learned reading in their adulthood had similar brain activities compared to those who learned reading in their childhood. This suggests that literacy can impact the brain at any age. It has always been assumed that the brain becomes less flexible in aging people. Pointing out these new findings, Brian Wandell, a neuroscientist at Stanford University, emphasizes the ability of the brain to adapt and change upon acquiring the ability to read. He says, “Showing that this area is responsive to learning throughout life is a real contribution.”

3- Culturomics: Measuring culture through books

Original article: Michel J.B. et al., Science 331, 176 (2011).

A team of researchers from Harvard University and Google Books Team opened a new quantitative venue for social sciences which they named “Culturomics.” They used a gigantic data set, which was generated by digitizing over 15 million books (published between 1800 and 2008, ~12% of books ever published) in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Chinese, and Hebrew. The dataset includes over 500 billion words, and by using a new online tool (http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/) one can easily find out how many times a word was used throughout the last two centuries. The study elegantly demonstrates how human kind has changed in the twentieth century. For example, technological advances in the twentieth century became part of the culture almost three times faster than it used to be in the nineteenth century. On average, people became famous and lost their fame two times faster than in the nineteenth century, and the authors claim that the trend for becoming famous and losing fame will be even faster in the future, at which time “everyone will be famous for 7.5 minutes” on average. The researchers also spotted censorship in Nazi Germany by comparing books published in German and English by comparing the popularity of famous Jewish scientists and authors. It is yet too early to assume that this new approach will entirely change the way social scientists approach their problems, but it will certainly provide an unprecedented perspective into the humanities.

4- The search for extra dimensions is not pseudo-science after all

Original article: Bin-Nun A.Y. et al., Physical Review D 82, 064009 (2010).

The plausibility of co-existing dimensions beyond our 4 dimensional space (3 spatial + 1 time dimension) is nothing new. The attempt to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity led to the development of string theory in the late ’60s. M-Theory is a special extension of the superstring theory which predicts that there are 11 dimensions. It is posited that all elementary sub-atomic particles such as electrons and quarks are not 0-dimensional objects, but rather 1-dimensional vibrating “lines” or “strings.” These strings curl in specific patterns to form the subatomic particles, which then combine via nuclear forces to make up atoms and matter as we know it. Although the mathematical basis has long been established for string theory, it has hitherto not been tested due to the lack of observational signatures. A recent study suggests that it may be possible to observe the effects of extra dimensions after all by using supermassive black holes. Black holes, due to their immensely concentrated gravity, curve the space around them. This curvature affects even the light that passes through them. A star directly behind such a black hole may be observed as a warped or brightened astronomical source. It may even be possible to create so called “Einstein rings,” where the background star appears as a ring of light instead. The recent study argues that, if extra dimensions are not as tightly packed, the light that passes through curved space-time may exhibit anomalies which, in principle, can be detectable with very sensitive telescopes.

I am not sure we will ever know the truth about the causes of this terrible tragedy. There are a lot of things we still do not know and may never know. I do not know what happened as far as who is responsible for Sept 11th. Since there is no evidence, all I can do is analyze the event

I do not believe in conspiracy theories. So I do not think the Bush administration engineered this whole thing. However, I can say this: the Bush administration has effectively utilized the tragedy of September 11th to advance an agenda which it already had and brought with it to power when it was selected in 2000.

In this sense, there is a close analogy to the Cold War. For one thing, it has silenced any opposition to the postwar political movement that sought to dismantle the state’s power to regulate the economy. For example, in 1947 there was considerable public political debate about the full employment bill that would guarantee full domestic employment in America. But in the 1950s, after the Greek civil war and the announcement of the Truman Doctrine that formalized the Cold War against communism, these discussions disappeared from the political horizon.

If there had been no September 11th, could you have imagined, with a nation tumbling headfirst into a severe economic recession as America appears to be doing, that there would not be a considerable mobilization of Democrats, workers, women, African-Americans, and otherpopular constituencies to pressure this Republican administration to make some accommodation, to begin to try to use the power of the government to help the nation out of the recession? These issues, which galvanized the population, disappeared from the radar screen in the aftermath of September 11th. No one is debating them right now.

It is also true that September 11th and the war on terrorism does give America something external that helps the government suppress internal dissent. But it is also a source of political capital that America can use to muscle its allies into doing things they might not otherwise do. I do not think America would have received the kind of cooperation that ti did in Afghanistan had it not been for September 11th.

In conclusion, the Bush administration has utilized this event for its benefit. Wars are excellent tools to draw people’s attention to something else especially one with no end in sight that has targeted America.

Fundamentalism

After September 11, discussions on Islamic fundamentalism began yet again. I think it is easier to understand fundamentalism in political, rather than religious, terms. What creates conflict is fundamentally contradictory interests. I think there are individuals in nations that have different political, economic, and cultural interests.

I do not think there is such a thing as Islamic fundamentalism any more than there is a Christian fundamentalism or a Jewish fundamentalism. That is what is going on here. I do not buy this argument that there is an Islamic fundamentalism whose interests are fundamentally contrary to those of the West, which I also think is an imagined community. What is the West? Are Japan and South Korea, Israel and Haiti, Finland and Spain part of it?