Secrets of the pyramids

What is it with people thinking that pyramids are magical?

I knew a woman a long time ago who was so convinced there was something special about a square and four equilateral triangles that she built one by hot-gluing together some dowels. Then she'd store her apples and bananas under it, and told everyone how much longer they stayed unspoiled than if the fruit was just sitting on her counter.  She'd also resharpen her dull razor blades by putting them under the pyramid, and last I heard, was trying to construct one big enough to sleep under, because it's supposed to make you sleep better and also boost your sex drive.

And lo, over at the the site Life Positive, we find out why this is:

Likewise, do we know that most of our body related ailments are not even body related?  There is nothing wrong in saying that medical treatment cures your body and mind.  But, we also have to understand that it's not only our 'body' and 'mind' which needs all the attention and cure.  Above all, it is the in-depth aspect to be taken care of, is our "Soul." 

Physical Body of an average human being accounts for 0.01% of the total energy.  Mind accounts for 0.99% of the total energy. Most noteworthy, 'Soul' alone is liable for 99% of the total energy of the human being...  A few scientists have discovered that pyramids have energy properties that help in healing many types of diseases.  There is a special property of a pyramid.  It deflects any type of cosmic rays that are falling on its apex.
These deflected rays combine with earth’s gravitational force and form a new and powerful bioenergy field.  Pyramids deflect all the rays falling on its apex without affecting the centre and this indicates that it is safe at the centre surround by bioenergy field.  Pyramids have a good ionization effect and so they enhance oxygen intake in the body and improve our concentration.

A few responses to this bit:

• 0.99% and 99% are not the same thing.
• There is no such thing as a "bioenergy field."  The term "field" is precisely defined in physics, and trust me, what these people are talking about ain't it.
• "Ionization" means turning neutral atoms into ions -- charged particles -- by moving around electrons.  There's no such thing as "good ionization" except insofar as some ions (like the O2- superoxide ion) are damaging to living tissue, so I suppose a "good ion" is one that doesn't do that.  What this has to do with pyramids is anyone's guess.
• I suspect that the whole cosmic-ray-deflection business is a wild misinterpretation of some real research that was published back in 2018, wherein it was found that pyramidal structures could act as resonators for radio waves.  As soon as I saw this paper I did a facepalm, because I knew this would be further incentive for the woo-woos to claim that there was something supernatural going on here.  In fact, resonance isn't anything New-Age-y; it occurs when an object has the capacity to reflect waves in such a way as to reinforce them and create a "standing wave," such as the vibration of a guitar string.  This only occurs at certain frequencies -- which is why a plucked guitar string can only produce one particular note -- and explains such phenomena as the enormous tides in the Bay of Fundy and the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

Despite these and other objections the whole pyramid-power thing has gotten so much traction that it actually made Mythbusters.  They tested a bunch of these claims, with a certified pyramid made to the exact proportions of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and to no one's particular surprise, none of the claims turned out to be true.

Which makes you wonder why sites like The Secret Power of the Pyramidal Shape still pop up.  This one was sent to me by three different loyal readers of Skeptophilia, and it's quite a read.  The thing I found the most amusing about it was that it had in-source citations, so it looks a little like an academic paper, but when you check the "Sources Cited" you find out that three of them come from the aforementioned Life Positive article; one comes from a man named David Wilcock, who claims to be the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce; and one of them comes from the phenomenally loony site Above Top Secret.

Not exactly a bibliography that would inspire confidence.

The article itself is worth reading, though, because it has some fairly surreal passages.  Take, for example, this:

The best passive torsion generators are formed by cones or pyramidal shapes built according to the “phi” ratio of 1 to 0.618 and it can, therefore, be said the pyramid shape has the power to harness torsional energy because torsion waves are phi-spirals and for this reason a pyramid will hold positive energy and deflects negative energy wavelengths and therefore inhibit natural decay.

Sure!  Right!  What?

I mean, about the only things that was doing spirals were my eyes after reading that passage.  Torsional energy is well understood by physicists, and has nothing to do with "phi."  But it's unsurprising that it comes up, honestly.  "Phi" is, of course, the Golden Section, about which much mystical nonsense has been written.  It's a pretty cool number, no question about it, and crops up with great regularity in nature; but it doesn't repel "negative energy wavelengths."

Whatever those are.

We also have some lunar lunacy added to the mix:

Parr has... found that the width of the energy containment bubble or orb expands and contracts with the phases of the moon.  This suggests again that the spherical orb on the outside of the pyramid is a static torsion field that gathers around the pyramid and is strengthened by absorbing other dynamic torsion fields.

It was also, apparently, found that a pyramid's "energy field" oscillates at 500 to 1000 hertz.  Should be easy to measure such a phenomenon, right?  I mean, physicists do this sort of thing.  But then we read, "...it was found that every now and then Pyramids quit responding to recordings and measurements."

Convenient, that.

Then we get a photograph of a Mayan pyramid shooting a beam of light up into the air.  Proof, right?  Here's the photograph:

This struck me as especially amusing, because I did a piece on this photograph way back in 2012 when it first started making the rounds of the interwebz, and included an analysis by Jonathon Hill, digital image analyst for the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University.  Hill noticed something odd about the "energy beam" -- that it was perfectly vertical with respect to the image orientation.  Not a single pixel's variation along its entire length on either side, which is pretty odd if it's a natural (or even a supernatural) phenomenon.  (But easily explainable if it's a digital image artifact.)

But maybe pyramids make these sorts of exactly coherent beams of biocosmic resonant wavelength positive energy vibrations.

Oh, and "quantum." Don't forget "quantum."

So even despite Mythbusters and other round debunkings, and the complete lack of scientifically admissible evidence, "pyramid power" is still out there.  I have to admit there is something kind of special about these archeological sites; I remember being awed by visiting the Jaguar Temple, a Mayan pyramid in Belize.  My sons and I climbed to the top, and it was pretty cool, although we didn't experience any surge of harmonic resonance energies (mostly what I remember is looking down the stairs and thinking "Good lord that is A LONG WAY DOWN").

So don't waste your time putting your fruit under a pyramid.  There's another magical device that is much better at keeping fruit fresh.

It's called a "refrigerator."

************************************

This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is a fun and amusing discussion of a very ominous topic; how the universe will end.

In The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) astrophysicist Katie Mack takes us through all the known possibilities -- a "Big Crunch" (the Big Bang in reverse), the cheerfully-named "Heat Death" (the material of the universe spread out at uniform density and a uniform temperature of only a few degrees above absolute zero), the terrifying -- but fortunately extremely unlikely -- Vacuum Decay (where the universe tears itself apart from the inside out), and others even wilder.

The cool thing is that all of it is scientifically sound.  Mack is a brilliant theoretical astrophysicist, and her explanations take cutting-edge research and bring it to a level a layperson can understand.  And along the way, her humor shines through, bringing a touch of lightness and upbeat positivity to a subject that will take the reader to the edges of the known universe and the end of time.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Death in the seas

It's amazing what scientists sometimes miss.

This is not meant to be any kind of indictment of scientists, or science in general.  It's just part of the game, honestly; sometimes it takes a while for the evidence to be uncovered, while sometimes previous theories act as blinders -- such as the long-held idea of the Earth's geology being driven by geosynclines, huge downward folds in the Earth's crust, that were supposed to explain both sedimentary rock strata and orogeny (mountain-forming).  Never mind that no one could quite explain why geosynclines occurred; most of it seemed to be hand-waving talk about masses of eroded sediments causing blocks of crust to fault and tilt like a teeter-totter.  Despite there being no plausible mechanism, this idea was so entrenched in the scientific minds of the nineteenth and early twentieth century that even as the evidence for plate tectonics accrued, most geologists dismissed it as fancy -- until the discovery of the magnetic stripes on either side of the Mid-Atlantic Rift Zone proved plate tectonics beyond any question.

But like I said, sometimes the problem is that the evidence takes a while to come together.  For example, consider the paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution that appeared a while back, called, "The Pliocene Marine Megafauna Extinction and Its Impact on Functional Diversity," by a team led by Catalina Pimiento of the University of Zürich.  In it, the researchers describe an enormous mass extinction that happened between two and three million years ago -- pretty close to recent, in geological terms -- and which scientists had previously been almost entirely unaware.

Mass extinctions leave a huge footprint in the geological record.  Not only does biodiversity drop dramatically from one stratum to the one immediately above it, but the drastic differences in the sorts of species you find on either side -- who were the winners and losers -- is usually an obvious marker that something enormous has happened.

Paleontologists have identified what they call the Big Five:

• The Ordovician-Silurian Extinction (440 million years ago)
• The Devonian Extinction (365 million years ago)
• The Permian-Triassic Extinction (250 million years ago)
• The Triassic-Jurassic Extinction (210 million years ago)
• The Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction (66 million years ago)

All of these have been well-established for over a century, although convincing explanations for the cause of each is still a subject of heated discussion.  But the much more recent extinction that was the subject of the Pimiento et al. paper, which occurred at the boundary between the Pliocene and Pleistocene Epoch, was overlooked despite its magnitude.

The authors write:

The end of the Pliocene marked the beginning of a period of great climatic variability and sea-level oscillations.  Here, based on a new analysis of the fossil record, we identify a previously unrecognized extinction event among marine megafauna (mammals, seabirds, turtles and sharks) during this time, with extinction rates three times higher than in the rest of the Cenozoic, and with 36% of Pliocene genera failing to survive into the Pleistocene.  To gauge the potential consequences of this event for ecosystem functioning, we evaluate its impacts on functional diversity, focusing on the 86% of the megafauna genera that are associated with coastal habitats.  Seven (14%) coastal functional entities (unique trait combinations) disappeared, along with 17% of functional richness (volume of the functional space). 

A loss of 36% of the marine genera is huge.  Especially when you consider that some of the vanished species weren't exactly tiny obscure sea bugs.  One of the victims was Carcharodon megalodon, the largest shark species known, which reached a length of fifteen meters from tip to tail and weighed upward of fifty metric tons.  What seems to have hidden this event from view is that it mainly impacted marine organisms, whose remains may well have been fossilized, but most of which are still underwater (there hasn't been that much large-scale geological shift in two million years, so most Pliocene-age rocks are pretty much still sitting where they formed).

[Image is in the Public Domain]

But this research also uncovered an interesting pattern in the extinction.  Warm-blooded animals were hit way harder than cold-blooded ones; consider that the event wiped out 55% of marine mammals and 35% of marine birds, but only 9% of sharks.  (For some reason, sea turtles also took a huge hit; 43% of the known species of Pliocene sea turtles were wiped out.)

The surmise by the scientists is that the Pliocene-Pleistocene Extinction was caused by large-scale sea level fluctuations altering oceanic current patterns and eradicating coastal habitat.  Climate change today seems to be aiming toward a similar target.  "This study shows that marine megafauna were far more vulnerable to global environmental changes in the recent geological past than had previously been assumed," said study lead author Catalina Pimiento.  "This also points to a present-day parallel: Nowadays, large marine species such as whales or seals are also highly vulnerable to human influences."

So here we have another cautionary tale, if we needed one.  Once again, marine mammals are at risk, but this time it's human activity that's driving the change.  Polar bears -- sometimes referred to as the "poster child for climate change" -- are likely to be extinct by 2100 if we stay on the trajectory we're on.

You have to wonder what future paleontologists will make of our age.  Will the sedimentary rocks forming today tell the story of a sudden, drastic decrease in biodiversity?  Will there be any way to tell what caused it?  Who will be the winners -- and who the losers?

And most frightening of all, will we still be around to consider the question?

*****************************

Being in the middle of a pandemic, we're constantly being urged to wash our hands and/or use hand sanitizer.  It's not a bad idea, of course; multiple studies have shown that communicable diseases spread far less readily if people take the simple precaution of a thirty-second hand-washing with soap.

But as a culture, we're pretty obsessed with cleanliness.  Consider how many commercial products -- soaps, shampoos, body washes, and so on -- are dedicated solely to cleaning our skin.  Then there are all the products intended to return back to our skin and hair what the first set of products removed; the whole range of conditioners, softeners, lotions, and oils.

How much of this is necessary, or even beneficial?  That's the topic of the new book Clean: The New Science of Skin by doctor and journalist James Hamblin, who considers all of this and more -- the role of hyper-cleanliness in allergies, asthma, and eczema, and fascinating and recently-discovered information about our skin microbiome, the bacteria that colonize our skin and which are actually beneficial to our overall health.  Along the way, he questions things a lot of us take for granted... such as whether we should be showering daily.

It's a fascinating read, and looks at the question from a data-based, scientific standpoint.  Hamblin has put together the most recent evidence on how we should treat the surfaces of our own bodies -- and asks questions that are sure to generate a wealth of discussion.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Infinite stars, important dust, and light's vacation home

I get the oddest emails sometimes.

I guess it's an occupational hazard.  Some of them are very earnest, trying to get me to see the error of my ways and just believe in (circle one: homeopathy, astrology, auras, psychic energy fields, ghosts, Bigfoot, chakras, god).  Others are angry at me for not believing in any of the above, and call me all sorts of names, sometimes giving me anatomically-impossible suggestions as a bonus.

The most puzzling ones, though, are when someone simply sends me a link.  What am I supposed to do with this?  Is it an appeal to believe whatever the website is claiming?  Is it a suggestion for a future blog post?  Is a link to a malware site that will destroy my computer?  Or is it a case of trolling -- sending me something intended to raise my blood pressure to near-aneurysm levels?

I got one of those types yesterday -- an unsigned email from an address I did not recognize, with a link to the site "Scientific Proof of the Bible."  Clearly I couldn't see a site with that title and not click the link.  If the individual who sent it was fishing for skeptics, (s)he hooked one on the first try.

The site has the following header:

The Bible is estimated to have been written between 1450 B.C. and 95 A.D.  This chart shows scientific facts and principles referred to in this ancient Bible, but not actually discovered by humankind until later centuries.  Dead sea scrolls, historical documentation, and word of mouth all confirm the authenticity of the Bible.  Since people had no official knowledge of these scientific facts until more than a thousand years after the Bible was written, is this scientific proof that the Bible was inspired by God?

There follows a list of scientific facts and claims, the Bible verse that allegedly predicted them, and the year that the scientists finally discovered them (proving the Bible right after the fact, is the implication).  For instance we have "Light is a particle and has mass (a photon)," which I think is supposed to be some kind of description of the wave/particle duality of light (I'm being generous, here).  The scientists discovered this in 1932 (says the website), but it had been predicated thousands of years earlier, in Job 38:19.  So I looked up Job 38:19, and it says: "Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?"

Well, I don't know about you, but as far as I can see, that has fuck-all to do with photons and wave/particle duality.  Other than the mention of the word "light," that is.  And it implies, incorrectly, that light dwelleth somewhere, as if light hath a vacation home in Palm Beach or something.

So I thought, okay, maybe that was just a bad example.  So I tried "An infinite number of stars exist," which was supposedly predicted by Genesis 15:5.  Here's Genesis 15:5: "And he brought him [Abraham] forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be."

Well, the number of Abraham's descendants isn't infinite.  In fact, it isn't even close to the number of stars in our galaxy alone (currently estimated at about 300 billion).  So this one isn't so much irrelevant as it is simply wrong.

[Image is in the Public Domain courtesy of NASA/JPL]

So then I looked at "Dust is important to survival," allegedly discovered by scientists in 1935.  And it's true, I suppose; dust storms carry minerals out over the oceans, and have a great effect on oceanic productivity.  But the quote that allegedly should have told those silly scientists all they needed to know about the phenomenon millennia ago is Isaiah 40:12, which says, "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of Earth in a measure, and weighed out the mountains in scales, and the hills with a balance?"

Well, I certainly haven't, but the preceding verse seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with dust being "important for survival."

Then we have "Radio astronomy (stars give off signals)," which brings us back to the Book of Job -- Job 38:7, to be specific.  And that verse is: "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."

By this point, I was thinking, "Oh, come on. Is that really the best you can do?"  Because a lot of the rest of them were patently ridiculous -- like claiming that it took scientists until the 19th century to realize that blood was necessary for life, that oceans have currents, and that thunder and lightning were related (hell, my dog figured that last one out).

Oh, and supposedly it wasn't until the 17th century that the scientists realized that both a man and a woman are necessary to make a baby.

How exactly stupid do these people think that scientists are?  I mean, I know that sometimes we nerds can be a little hopeless in the romance department, but even we understand how sex works.

So at this point, I kind of gave it up as a bad job.

I guess I should be, in a way, heartened; that the biblical literalists are feeling threatened enough even to try to create a list like this means that they're recognizing the inroad that rationalism is making.  But man, you'd think if they were going to try to craft a cogent argument, they could manage something a little more convincing.

Of course, this still doesn't answer my initial question, which is whether the person who sent it to me meant it as a suggestion, a criticism, or a dubious attempt to anger me into a coronary.  I'm taking it as the first-mentioned, which is at least the nicest of the three.  And if the person who sent it reads this, please let me know in the "Comments" section if I'm right, just to satisfy my own curiosity.

But do try to avoid any anatomically-impossible suggestions.  Those are kind of off-putting.

*****************************

Being in the middle of a pandemic, we're constantly being urged to wash our hands and/or use hand sanitizer.  It's not a bad idea, of course; multiple studies have shown that communicable diseases spread far less readily if people take the simple precaution of a thirty-second hand-washing with soap.

But as a culture, we're pretty obsessed with cleanliness.  Consider how many commercial products -- soaps, shampoos, body washes, and so on -- are dedicated solely to cleaning our skin.  Then there are all the products intended to return back to our skin and hair what the first set of products removed; the whole range of conditioners, softeners, lotions, and oils.

How much of this is necessary, or even beneficial?  That's the topic of the new book Clean: The New Science of Skin by doctor and journalist James Hamblin, who considers all of this and more -- the role of hyper-cleanliness in allergies, asthma, and eczema, and fascinating and recently-discovered information about our skin microbiome, the bacteria that colonize our skin and which are actually beneficial to our overall health.  Along the way, he questions things a lot of us take for granted... such as whether we should be showering daily.

It's a fascinating read, and looks at the question from a data-based, scientific standpoint.  Hamblin has put together the most recent evidence on how we should treat the surfaces of our own bodies -- and asks questions that are sure to generate a wealth of discussion.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

The doctor, Donald Trump, and demon sex

As I have mentioned more than once, there's pretty good evidence lately that the aliens who are in charge of the computer simulation we're all trapped in have gotten bored and/or stoned, and now they're just fucking with us.

For example, consider Dr. Stella Immanuel.  Dr. Immanuel has recently become a darling of the pro-Trump faction for her claims that she's cured people with active COVID-19 infections through a combination of hydroxychloroquine, Zithromax (the antibiotic in the "Z-Pak"), and zinc.  She was one of the leading voices at a "summit" hosted by a group calling itself "America's Frontline Doctors," which I have to admit has more gravitas than the more accurate "America's Batshit Conspiracy Theorists."  The misinformation flew at the "summit," including not only that COVID-19 was curable using hydroxychloroquine (multiple studies have found it to have no positive effects on the course of the illness, and a plethora of nasty side effects, some of which can be fatal), but that the pandemic itself was overblown and that masks aren't necessary to prevent its spread.

Trump, of course, loves Dr. Immanuel, because her message is identical to the one he's been pushing for months.  He tweeted a link to a video of Dr. Immanuel defending her coronavirus misinformation, and Donald Jr. retweeted it, calling it a "Must watch!!!"  Then the powers-that-be at both Twitter and Facebook, showing a rare burst of ethical behavior, deleted her video, tagged tweets promoting it as "containing misinformation," and most surprising of all, locked Donald Jr.'s Twitter account for twelve hours.

Dr. Immanuel, though, follows Trump's model in more than just espousing ridiculous pseudoscience; her personal motto is apparently "Death before admitting error."  After her video was taken down, she and Trump both doubled down on her position.  Dr. Immanuel threatened divine intervention, saying that Jesus Christ would destroy Facebook's servers if the video wasn't restored.  (They didn't, and he didn't.)  Trump, on the other hand, took a more mundane approach, if not substantially more sane.  "I can tell you this, she was on air along with many other doctors," he said.  "They were big fans of hydroxychloroquine and I thought she was very impressive in the sense that from where she came, I don't know which country she comes from, but she said that she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients, and I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her."

The bizarre ideas of this "important voice" go far beyond misinformation about COVID-19, however.  Dr. Immanuel is a veritable fountain of loony beliefs, which include the following:

• The medical establishment is working on medicines that are created from extraterrestrial DNA.
• Gynecological disorders occur when women have dreams about having sex with demons.  It's the "demon sperm" that causes the problem.
• Wet dreams cause erectile dysfunction, once again because they're accompanied by images of having sex.  With demon women, of course.
• The demons themselves, though, aren't just in it for the kicks, but because that's how they reproduce.  "They turn into a woman and then they sleep with the man and collect his sperm," Immanuel said in a sermon at the church she runs in Houston, Texas, called "Firepower Ministries."  "Then they turn into the man and they sleep with a woman and deposit the sperm and reproduce more of themselves."
• She calls herself a "wealth transfer coach."  Presumably that means transferring wealth from your bank account to hers.
• The Illuminati (of course the Illuminati are involved) are trying to destroy the world, and the main way they're doing this has to do with gay marriage.  Don't ask me how that works.
• Part of the government is being run by aliens who are reptilian in appearance, and oddly enough, I don't think she meant Mitch McConnell.
• Scientists are currently working on a vaccine to prevent people from being religious.
• Even children's toys are suspect.  She calls Pokémon "eastern demons," and has a special hatred for the Magic 8-Ball, which is a "psychic object used to start children in witchcraft."  (Sorry, Dr. Immanuel, "My sources say no.")

So this is the person that Donald Trump called "spectacular" and "very respected."

Then others took up the outcry.  Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, said that because Dr. Immanuel and Donald Trump were saying the same thing, she was being "attacked, ridiculed, and discredited" in a deliberate effort to damage Trump's reputation.  (Not, apparently, because what she was saying was certifiable horseshit.)  Simone Gold, one of the leaders of America's Frontline Doctors, said that social media was committing a crime by "censoring Physicians from speaking about COVID-19 and Hydroxychloroquine."  Radio host Mark Levin criticized several media outlets, such as The Daily Beast, for being part of a "vicious smear machine" -- because they'd quoted Dr. Immanuel verbatim.

As for the doctors who refuse to prescribe hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus infections, Dr. Immanuel said, "You’re no different than a murderer.  You’re no different than Hitler."

Here we have a person who in a sane world would be looked at as a wacko, more to be pitied than censured, but because Donald Trump says he likes her, Trump-supporters nationwide suddenly act as if she's the next Jonas Salk.  (Oh, and simultaneously, they cast Dr. Anthony Fauci -- one of the world's experts in communicable disease research -- as a fool at best and an evil mastermind at worst, for saying such things as "wear a mask in public" and "don't take medications that don't work and can also kill you.")

So that's the upside-down world we currently live in.  I'd like to tell you that things will sort themselves out and that wiser and saner heads will ultimately prevail, but if there's one thing I've learned in the past four years, it's that predicting what will happen next is a loser's game.  I even tried asking the best source I have, hoping to get some clarity, desperately seeking a reason to believe that things will improve soon.

But all it would say is "Reply hazy, try again."

*****************************

Being in the middle of a pandemic, we're constantly being urged to wash our hands and/or use hand sanitizer.  It's not a bad idea, of course; multiple studies have shown that communicable diseases spread far less readily if people take the simple precaution of a thirty-second hand-washing with soap.

But as a culture, we're pretty obsessed with cleanliness.  Consider how many commercial products -- soaps, shampoos, body washes, and so on -- are dedicated solely to cleaning our skin.  Then there are all the products intended to return back to our skin and hair what the first set of products removed; the whole range of conditioners, softeners, lotions, and oils.

How much of this is necessary, or even beneficial?  That's the topic of the new book Clean: The New Science of Skin by doctor and journalist James Hamblin, who considers all of this and more -- the role of hyper-cleanliness in allergies, asthma, and eczema, and fascinating and recently-discovered information about our skin microbiome, the bacteria that colonize our skin and which are actually beneficial to our overall health.  Along the way, he questions things a lot of us take for granted... such as whether we should be showering daily.

It's a fascinating read, and looks at the question from a data-based, scientific standpoint.  Hamblin has put together the most recent evidence on how we should treat the surfaces of our own bodies -- and asks questions that are sure to generate a wealth of discussion.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

The pursuit of pleasure

It will come as no great shock to anyone who knows me that my patronus is a border collie.

Relaxation is not easy for me.  I'm kind of in perpetual motion from the moment I wake up.  Part of it is pure physical nervousness; even when I'm sitting still I'm not sitting still, and usually I'm bouncing one leg or swinging a foot back and forth or something.  In the last couple of months, driven by the fact that the pandemic closed the gym we belong to, my wife and I have been doing an online yoga program (we really like the one on YouTube with the ever-cheerful Adriene Mishler).  The problem is, for me at least, yoga isn't just about trying to twist your body into a Möbius strip, it's equally about focusing on your breath and finding inner stillness.  It usually begins, and always ends, with some sort of quiet meditative posture.

This is harder for me than trying to force myself into the Inverted Pretzel Asana, or whatever incomprehensible position she is encouraging us to bend ourselves into during the session itself.  As soon as my body stops moving, my mind starts to race, and it's a struggle not to start thinking of the list of things I need to accomplish next (or, if it's in the evening, all the things I didn't accomplish during the day that I need to see to tomorrow).

So retirement has had its challenges.  I know the idea is, "You worked hard during your entire career, you deserve some time off just to chill."  For me it's more like, "Now there are even more hours in the day during which I will feel tremendously guilty for not being as productive as I for some reason think I should be."

Q: How many border collies does it take to change a light bulb?  A: Only one.  He will do it quickly and efficiently, and afterward he will check to make sure all the wiring in your house is up to code.  [Image licensed under the Creative Commons Thomas Vaclavek from Woodstock, USA, Border Collie panting, CC BY-SA 2.0]

Add to this the fact that I have an insanely competitive streak, and it's a wonder I haven't stressed myself into a heart attack yet.  As an example, I can't just enjoy running; I had to join the OneNYChallenge, a "virtual" race where you run each day and log your miles online (the whole thing is a fundraiser for COVID research).  We had from May 15 to August 31 to log 500 kilometers -- I finished the race a month and a half early, and now am looking around like, "Okay, c'mon, what next?"

Anyhow, all this neurotic stuff comes up because of a paper last week in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, describing research from the University of Zürich that found that being hedonistic makes you happier than being goal-oriented -- that the old conventional wisdom that true happiness comes from self-control and delayed gratification leading to accomplishment might not be all that accurate.

The authors write:

Self-control helps to align behavior with long-term goals (e.g., exercising to stay fit) and shield it from conflicting hedonic goals (e.g., relaxing).  Decades of research have shown that self-control is associated with numerous positive outcomes, such as well-being.  In the present article, we argue that hedonic goal pursuit is equally important for well-being, and that conflicting long-term goals can undermine it in the form of intrusive thoughts.

"It's time for a rethink," said study lead author, social psychologist Katharina Bernecker, in an interview with Science Daily.  "Of course self-control is important, but research on self-regulation should pay just as much attention to hedonism, or short-term pleasure...  It was always thought that hedonism, as opposed to self-control, was the easier option...  The pursuit of hedonic and long-term goals needn't be in conflict with one another.  Our research shows that both are important and can complement each other in achieving well-being and good health. It is important to find the right balance in everyday life."

My question is whether this may be a correlation/causation error; that happier, more well-adjusted people gravitate toward occasional hedonism because they're confident enough to be a little self-righteous about their own needs and desires, not that increasing hedonistic behavior in people who are already wound a little too tight would make them happier.  To be fair, Bernecker did address that point: "But really enjoying one's hedonic choice isn't actually that simple for everybody because of those distracting thoughts...  Thinking of the work you still need to do can lead to more distracting thoughts at home, making you less able to rest."

So it makes me wonder what I can do about my own situation, since I doubt that merely eating a slice of chocolate cake for lunch and then taking a nap is going to fix my rabid goal-orientation.  And there is a good side of being as driven as I am; I have thirteen novels and a collection of short stories in print, I entertain the masses by writing here at Skeptophilia six days a week, and given that I ran five hundred kilometers in 65 days, I'm in pretty good physical condition for a 59-year-old.  But I would like to find a way to cycle down the nervous energy, and especially, get rid of the guilt, a relic of a childhood where there were two classes of activity: "accomplishing something worthwhile" and "wasting time."  (Sadly, in my parents' view, reading, writing, and playing music were all in the latter category.)

So it's time for the border collie to give it a rest.  I don't want to switch my patronus to a hound dog sleeping all day on the porch (which honestly is probably outside the realm of possibility in any case).  But it seems like I need to take the Bernecker et al. study to heart.

Maybe starting with the chocolate cake.  That actually sounded pretty good.

*****************************

Being in the middle of a pandemic, we're constantly being urged to wash our hands and/or use hand sanitizer.  It's not a bad idea, of course; multiple studies have shown that communicable diseases spread far less readily if people take the simple precaution of a thirty-second hand-washing with soap.

But as a culture, we're pretty obsessed with cleanliness.  Consider how many commercial products -- soaps, shampoos, body washes, and so on -- are dedicated solely to cleaning our skin.  Then there are all the products intended to return back to our skin and hair what the first set of products removed; the whole range of conditioners, softeners, lotions, and oils.

How much of this is necessary, or even beneficial?  That's the topic of the new book Clean: The New Science of Skin by doctor and journalist James Hamblin, who considers all of this and more -- the role of hyper-cleanliness in allergies, asthma, and eczema, and fascinating and recently-discovered information about our skin microbiome, the bacteria that colonize our skin and which are actually beneficial to our overall health.  Along the way, he questions things a lot of us take for granted... such as whether we should be showering daily.

It's a fascinating read, and looks at the question from a data-based, scientific standpoint.  Hamblin has put together the most recent evidence on how we should treat the surfaces of our own bodies -- and asks questions that are sure to generate a wealth of discussion.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Space germs

I'm fully in support of pure research, which should be obvious to anyone who is a regular reader of Skeptophilia.  But sometimes I run into a paper that leaves me scratching my head.

This happened this past weekend when I stumbled upon a press release from the University of Exeter entitled, "Mammals Could Struggle to Fight Space Germs."  The gist was that a team led by microbiologist Neil Gow did a series of experiments exposing mammalian cells to lab-synthesized peptides containing two amino acids that have been detected in space but not found in terrestrial proteins (isovaline and α-aminoisobutyric acid), and they found that the cell cultures had a "weak immune response."  From this, they concluded that if we're exposed to extraterrestrial microbes, we might really suck at fighting them off.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Phoebus87 at English Wikipedia, Symian virus, CC BY-SA 3.0]

This seemed like a rather overblown conclusion, so I went to the original paper (always a good idea; even university press releases are often oversimplifications or miss important points).  In this case, though, the press release was pretty much spot-on.  Here it is, straight from the paper:

The discovery of liquid water at several locations in the solar system raises the possibility that microbial life may have evolved outside Earth and as such could be accidently introduced into the Earth’s ecosystem.  Unusual sugars or amino acids, like non-proteinogenic isovaline and α-aminoisobutyric acid that are vanishingly rare or absent from life forms on Earth, have been found in high abundance on non-terrestrial carbonaceous meteorites.  It is therefore conceivable that exo-microorganisms might contain proteins that include these rare amino acids.  We therefore asked whether the mammalian immune system would be able to recognize and induce appropriate immune responses to putative proteinaceous antigens that include these rare amino acids. To address this, we synthesised peptide antigens based on a backbone of ovalbumin and introduced isovaline and α-aminoisobutyric acid residues and demonstrated that these peptides can promote naïve OT-I cell activation and proliferation, but did so less efficiently than the canonical peptides.  This is relevant to the biosecurity of missions that may retrieve samples from exoplanets and moons that have conditions that may be permissive for life, suggesting that accidental contamination and exposure to exo-microorganisms with such distinct proteomes might pose an immunological challenge.

Okay, I'll admit that this is one possible conclusion you could draw; it certainly has been riffed on often enough in science fiction, starting all the way back in 1969 with The Andromeda Strain.  (You could argue that it goes back further than that, given that at the end of H. G. Wells's 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, the invading Martians are destroyed by terrestrial microbes to which they have no natural immunity.)

The other possibility, however, is that the microbes wouldn't affect us at all.  When pathogens attack our cells, they usually obtain ingress by bonding to receptors on the surface.  Those receptors can be amazingly specific; this is why there are so many strains of flu, some of which only attack birds or pigs... or humans.  The immune species, in this case, lack the surface proteins that can form bonds to the viral proteins, so they don't get in.  The result: no disease.

In fact, it's even more specific than that.  In 2006, an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu generated worries about a pandemic, until it was learned that although highly contagious in birds, it only affects humans if the virus binds deep in the lung tissue -- the receptors in the upper respiratory system aren't able to bind to the virus efficiently (fortunately for us).  The only ones who became ill were poultry workers who were exposed to dust and debris in poultry houses.  No cases of human-to-human transmission were recorded.

So my suspicion is that extraterrestrial microbes probably wouldn't be able to attack us at all.  And given that our tissues would lack the two oddball amino acids the researchers used in their experiments, it seems pretty likely that if the microbes did get in, they'd starve to death.  (Put more scientifically, our proteins would lack two amino acids they need, so we wouldn't be of much use to them as a food source.)

Of course, it's possible that Gow et al. are right, and extraterrestrial microorganisms would consider the Earth an all-you-can-eat buffet.  But given that (1) the number of extraterrestrial microorganisms we've actually studied is zero, and (2) there are equally persuasive arguments to the contrary, it might be a little bit of a premature conclusion.

Now, that doesn't mean we should be bringing outer space debris to Earth, sans quarantine.  Hell, I've read The Colour Out of Space, and last thing I want is to have a gaseous entity from a meteorite cause my limbs to crumble and fall off.  COVID-19 is bad enough, thanks.  We really don't need any more reasons to panic, however.  So for now, let's confine ourselves to dealing with threats that currently exist.

*****************************

Being in the middle of a pandemic, we're constantly being urged to wash our hands and/or use hand sanitizer.  It's not a bad idea, of course; multiple studies have shown that communicable diseases spread far less readily if people take the simple precaution of a thirty-second hand-washing with soap.

But as a culture, we're pretty obsessed with cleanliness.  Consider how many commercial products -- soaps, shampoos, body washes, and so on -- are dedicated solely to cleaning our skin.  Then there are all the products intended to return back to our skin and hair what the first set of products removed; the whole range of conditioners, softeners, lotions, and oils.

How much of this is necessary, or even beneficial?  That's the topic of the new book Clean: The New Science of Skin by doctor and journalist James Hamblin, who considers all of this and more -- the role of hyper-cleanliness in allergies, asthma, and eczema, and fascinating and recently-discovered information about our skin microbiome, the bacteria that colonize our skin and which are actually beneficial to our overall health.  Along the way, he questions things a lot of us take for granted... such as whether we should be showering daily.

It's a fascinating read, and looks at the question from a data-based, scientific standpoint.  Hamblin has put together the most recent evidence on how we should treat the surfaces of our own bodies -- and asks questions that are sure to generate a wealth of discussion.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Bad moon rising

It's been a good while since I've written a post about a story that's just plain loony.

Maybe it's because here in the United States, it's not so funny any more because the loonies appear to be in charge of the place, led by a man who spent ten minutes in an interview bragging about how he had successfully passed a test to detect dementia.  ("The doctors were amazed," he said.)

But yesterday I ran into a story that was so completely wacky that I would be remiss in not bringing it to your attention.  As with so many strange things lately, it began on TikTok, the bizarre social media site wherein people upload short videos of themselves doing dances or singing songs or whatnot.  Me, I don't honestly see the point.  It was ages before I was even willing to get on Instagram, and mostly what I do there is upload photographs of my dogs, my garden, and stuff about running.  (If you want to see pics of my dogs etc., you can follow me @skygazer227.)

Be that as it may, TikTok is wildly popular.  It has remained popular despite allegations that the app contains some kind of spyware from China.  TikTok users have been credited with reserving hundreds of seats at Donald Trump's Tulsa rally and then not showing up.  And apparently, it is also the host of a "vibrant witch community," which is called, I shit you not, "WitchTok."

But this is where things start to get a little weird.  Because a rumor started to circulate on "WitchTok" that a group of "baby witches" had put a hex on the Moon.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons Luc Viatour, Full Moon Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0]

It's unclear how the rumor got started, but once it did, it gained a life of its own, spreading to those estimable conduits for bizarre bullshit, Twitter and Reddit.  When the elder witches who were panicking about the thing tried to find out who these alleged "baby witches" were, they were unsuccessful.

For most of us, this would have been sufficient to conclude that there was nothing to the rumor, and to say, "Ha-ha, what a silly thing I almost fell for, right there."  But no.  The apparent absence of the "baby witches" could only mean one thing, they said: the hex on the Moon had backfired and killed all the "baby witches."

Well, with all the "baby witches" dead, surely that would put an end to it, right?  If you believe that, you don't know how social media works.  This made the rumor spread faster, with other witches claiming that they were the ones who'd hexed the Moon, not the "baby witches," and next they'd go after the Sun.  Some said that not only was the Moon hexed by these evildoers, but so were the "fae," the non-human denizens of fairyland, and admittedly this would be a pretty nasty thing to do if the fae actually existed.  One Twitter user, @heartij, cautioned that all this was walking on some pretty thin ice.  "Upsetting deities is the last thing any rational practitioner would want to do," they said, and I can't disagree with that, although none of this seems to have much to do with anything I'd call "rational."

@heartij added rather darkly, "the people behind the hex are more than likely being handled accordingly."

Others said that there was nothing to worry about, that the Moon was perfectly capable of withstanding being hexed, and that everything would settle down once the stars went into a better alignment.  "The Moon is a celestial being which controls us," said Ally Cooke, a trainee priestess.  "We’re currently in a new Moon that takes place in the sign of Cancer, which explains why so many practicing witches report disconnects with the Moon or personal odd feelings, but they’re confusing them with evidence for malpractice.  This new Moon is centered around releasing, and Cancer is a water sign, so emotions are running high at this time."

Makes perfect sense to me.

My first inclination upon reading this was to point out that through all this, the Moon has continued to circle around the Earth completely unchanged, and in fact not even looking a little worried.  But upon reading a bunch of the posts from WitchTok members and commenters on Reddit and Twitter, it became apparent that they're not saying anything physical has happened to the Moon.  It's all just invisible "bad energies" and "negative frequencies" aimed in the Moon's general direction.  But my question is -- forgive me if I'm naïve -- if (1) the hex itself operates by some mechanism that is invisible, and (2) it hasn't had any apparent result, how do you know it happened?

I guess we're back to "personal odd feelings."  For whatever that's worth.

Anyhow, that's today's dip in the deep end of the pool.  Me, I find it a refreshing change of pace from stories about elected officials who studied at the Boss Tweed School of Ethics and a president who thinks you get extra points for successfully saying "person, woman, man, camera, TV" from memory.  Compared with that, witches trying to stop other witches from aiming invisible hexes at distant astronomical objects is honestly a welcome diversion.

*****************************

Being in the middle of a pandemic, we're constantly being urged to wash our hands and/or use hand sanitizer.  It's not a bad idea, of course; multiple studies have shown that communicable diseases spread far less readily if people take the simple precaution of a thirty-second hand-washing with soap.

But as a culture, we're pretty obsessed with cleanliness.  Consider how many commercial products -- soaps, shampoos, body washes, and so on -- are dedicated solely to cleaning our skin.  Then there are all the products intended to return back to our skin and hair what the first set of products removed; the whole range of conditioners, softeners, lotions, and oils.

How much of this is necessary, or even beneficial?  That's the topic of the new book Clean: The New Science of Skin by doctor and journalist James Hamblin, who considers all of this and more -- the role of hyper-cleanliness in allergies, asthma, and eczema, and fascinating and recently-discovered information about our skin microbiome, the bacteria that colonize our skin and which are actually beneficial to our overall health.  Along the way, he questions things a lot of us take for granted... such as whether we should be showering daily.

It's a fascinating read, and looks at the question from a data-based, scientific standpoint.  Hamblin has put together the most recent evidence on how we should treat the surfaces of our own bodies -- and asks questions that are sure to generate a wealth of discussion.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]