Progress Daily

UCLA scientists have found that for computer-savvy middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function.

Dr. Gary Small (director of UCLA’s Memory and Aging Research Center), — with Teena D. Moody and Susan Y. Bookheimer — worked with 24 volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76. Half of the study participants had experience searching the Internet, while the other half had no experience. Age, educational level and gender were similar between the two groups.

Study participants performed Web searches and book-reading tasks while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans.

All study participants showed significant brain activity during the book-reading task, demonstrating use of the regions controlling language, reading, memory and visual abilities, which are located in the temporal, parietal, occipital and other areas of the brain.

All participants demonstrated the same brain activity during Internet searching that was seen during the book-reading task. During Internet searching, the Web-savvy group also registered activity in the frontal, temporal and cingulate areas of the brain (which control decision-making and complex reasoning).

During Internet searching, the brains of those with prior experience sparked 22,000 voxels, compared with only 7,000 voxels for those with less experience.

The minimal brain activation found in the less experienced Internet group may be due to participants not quite grasping the strategies needed to successfully engage in an Internet search.

“UCLA study finds that searching the Internet increases brain function,” by Rachel Champeau

In a study by Joshua Knobe, students were asked to evaluate the following scenario: A corporate chairman is presented by a vice president with a proposal for a new project. The VP explains that the project will increase profits but hurt the environment. The chairman replies, “I don’t care at all about helping the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program.” They do, and predictably the environment is harmed.

Did the CEO intentionally damage the environment? 82% of students said yes.

Other students were asked to evaluate this scenario: Same chairman, same VP, but this time the VP says the program will help the environment. The CEO, again, replies that he doesn’t care; his only concern is money. He gives a thumbs-up and, again, as predicted, the environment is helped. This time only 23% of students say the CEO intentionally helped the earth, although the scenarios are logically identical.

That people’s judgment about intentionality is shaped by the degree of harm done by the act being evaluated (”the Knobe effect”), has been demonstrated in subjects from India, among 4-year-olds, even among people who suffer from deficits in their emotional processing.

“Against Intuition,” by Christopher Shea

Complete Genomics says it will start charging only $5,000 next year for determining the sequence of the genetic code that makes up the DNA in one set of human chromosomes. This would represent another step toward of the “$1,000 genome,” the price at which it might become commonplace for people to obtain their entire DNA sequences, giving them information on what diseases they might be predisposed to or what drugs would work best for them.

The cost of DNA sequencing has dropped by a factor of 10 every year for the last four years, a faster rate of decline than even for computers, says George M. Church.

The first human genome sequence, completed by the federally financed Human Genome Project in 2003, is estimated to have cost a few hundred million dollars. In 2007, the genome sequence of James D. Watson was completed at a cost of about $1 million.

Today, the cost is about $100,000, according to Chad Nusbaum, of the Broad Institute.

Applied Biosystems recently announced that it expected its newest machine would allow a human genome to be sequenced for $10,000.

Right now, scientists studying diseases look at only particular locations in the DNA because it is too expensive to determine the entire DNA sequence. An entire sequence would probably provide more complete information.

“Dawn of Low-Price Mapping Could Broaden DNA Uses,” by Andrew Pollack

David Nickerson traveled to neighborhoods in Denver, Colorado and Minneapolis, Minnesota to study voter turnout. His experimenters walked door-to-door to contact people who lived in two-person households. (”Is Voting Contagious? Evidence from Two Field Experiments”; pdf file here.) Each of these households was randomly assigned to receive one of two treatments. The experimenter either encouraged the person who answered the door to vote at an upcoming election or encouraged the practice of recycling.

The people who answered the door and heard the plea to vote were about 10% more likely to turn out than those who heard the plea to recycle. The other person in the household was about 6% more likely to vote. In other words, 60% of the effect on the person who answered the door was passed on to the person who did not answer the door.

“Why do People Vote at All?,” by James Fowler

“How Religion Creates Moral Society,” by Scott Atran

According to the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Surveys, 1972-2004, 44% of people who reported being “conservative” or “very conservative” said they were “very happy” versus only 25% of people who reported being “liberal” or “very liberal.” A 2007 Gallup poll found that 58% of Republicans versus only 38% of Democrats said that their mental heath is “excellent.”

Daniel Klein (”Survey Project: Policy Views of Academics“), using voter registrations, found that in all departments in all colleges and universities throughout the USA, Democrats outnumber Republicans by 8 to 1. Smith College political scientist Stanley Rothman, in a 2005 national study, found that only 15% professors describe themselves as conservative, compared to 72% who said they were liberal (80% in humanities and social sciences).

“The Conscience of the Conservative,” by Michael Shermer