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Day: 11/23/2016
Sexist Men Are More Likely To Have Mental Health Problems, Study Finds
New research links masculine norms with psychological problems and an aversion to seeking help.
Toxic masculinity isn’t just bad for women.
Men who see themselves as having power over women or adhering to “playboy” behavior are significantly more likely to have psychological problems than those who conform less to masculine gender norms ― and they’re also less likely to seek help, according to a new study from the American Psychological Association.
The large-scale meta-analysis (or review of numerous studies), which was published Monday in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, examined conformity to masculine norms and mental health outcomes in 78 research samples involving nearly 20,000 men. The participants were predominantly white but also included African-American and Asian-American males.
The researchers evaluated participants using an inventory that measured 11 norms psychologists believe reflect traditional societal expectations of masculinity. Then they looked for links to positive and negative mental health outcomes and help-seeking behaviors.
11 Norms of Masculinity
• desire to win
• need for emotional control
• risk-taking
• violence
• dominance
• sexual promiscuity (being a “playboy”)
• self-reliance
• primacy of work (importance placed on one’s job)
• power over women
• disdain for homosexuality
• pursuit of status
Overall conformity to masculine norms was linked with negative mental health outcomes like stress, depression, anxiety, substance abuse issues and poor body image. Three particular norms, however, showed a particularly strong association: self-reliance, power over women, and “playboy” behavior ― the latter two being the most strongly associated with sexist attitudes and behaviors.
“Our findings on the unfavorable relationship between conformity to masculine norms and power over women is striking,” the study’s lead author, Indiana University Bloomington psychologist Dr. Y. Joel Wong, told The Huffington Post. “Sexism is a social injustice and it might ultimately be harmful to everyone, including the perpetrators of sexism.”
More troublingly, the men who conformed most to the sexist norms were also the least likely to seek help for their psychological problems.
Not all masculine traits, however, came with mental health risks. Primacy of work was not associated with either positive or negative mental health, while risk-taking behavior was correlated with both positive and negative outcomes, suggesting that it’s the type of risky behavior that matters.
Toxic Masculinity In American Culture
The findings join a growing body of research investigating the complex links between masculinity and mental health. As many psychologists have noted, it’s a complicated story, and factors like race and socioeconomic status have to be included in the equation.
“When people are feeling put upon by social pressures, by exposures like everyday racism, they may act in a particular way because doing so allows them to recoup that part of themselves that gets chipped away at by those social exposures,” Dr. Wizdom Powell, a psychologist who studies gender and race at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in an interview with the APA.
The authors of the meta-analysis didn’t explore how things like race, education level, political affiliation and cultural influences might affect a man’s tendency to adhere to masculine norms. But these connections may be worth investigating, particularly in light of the conversation around sexism that has sprung up in response to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
This month, America elected a president who has been accused of sexually assaulting 15 women ― and who excused his boasts of being able to assault women with impunity as “locker room talk,” revealing a view of masculinity in sexist terms. Indeed, many commentators have questioned the role of sexist attitudes in Trump’s rise to power. One team of political scientists found that the more hostile voters were toward women, the more likely they were to support Trump.
As Jared Yates Sexton wrote in a New York Times op-ed on toxic masculinity in Trump’s America, mortality rates for middle-aged white men have risen from what psychologists call “despair deaths,” including drug overdoses, suicide and alcohol-related diseases.
“[Trump] is the furthest thing from the working-class men of my childhood, but whatever his motives for demeaning women, these supporters hear in him an echo of their own desperation,” wrote Sexton, a creative writing professor at Georgia Southern University. “Though such masculinity might temporarily shelter men from the pressures of their daily lives, inevitably it robs them of their lives: Disturbing trends show that men, especially the white men who make up a majority of Mr. Trump’s base, are suffering greatly for their posturing.”
Of course, it’s likely only a small minority of Trump supporters that fit this profile. But as new questions about sexism and misogyny are being raised, it’s an important moment to consider how healthier norms of masculinity could benefit all of us.
“People can change and norms do change over time,” Wong said. “One way we can help shift these norms is for more people, including men, to express strong disapproval of behaviors that conform to sexist norms. Don’t remain silent.”
Human brain can store 4.7 billion books – ten times more than originally thought
One petabyte is the same as 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text,13.3 years of HD-TV recordings, 4.7 billion books or 670 million web pages
The human brain has a capacity that is ten times greater than first thought and can retain 4.7 billion books.
“The discovery is a real bombshell in the field of neuroscience,”
Professor Terry Sejnowski
The human brain has a capacity that is ten times greater than first thought and can retain 4.7 billion books, scientists have discovered.
This is according to US scientists who have measured the storage capacity of synapses – the brain connections that are responsible for storing memories.
They discovered that, on average, one synapse can hold roughly 4.7 bits of information. This means that the human brain has a capacity of one petabyte, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.
One petabyte is the same as 20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with text,13.3 years of HD-TV recordings, 4.7 billion books or 670 million web pages.
However, this is only the total amount of information that the relevant part of the brain could theoretically carry at any one moment. Its actual archive of memories would be a lot smaller.
Nevertheless, Professor Terry Sejnowski, of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in California, said the discovery is a “real bombshell in the field of neuroscience”.
“We discovered the key to unlocking the design principle for how hippocampal neurons function with low energy but high computation power,” he said.
“Our new measurements of the brain’s memory capacity increase conservative estimates by a factor of 10 to at least a petabyte, in the same ballpark as the World Wide Web.”
How Edwin Hubble discovered galaxies outside our own.
With one observation, Hubble doubled the size of the known universe..
In 1923, the universe was still thought to be a small place. Astronomers believed the Milky Way galaxy was at least tens of thousands light-years across, but they thought it was all there was to the universe — one grand galaxy spiraling in a lonesome ballet.
To be sure, the Milky Way is an enormous place, with at least a hundred billion stars. But Edwin Hubble suspected there was so much more.
Hubble, who would have turned 127 years old on Sunday, was perplexed by Andromeda, a fuzzy spiral region in the night sky.
At the time, the prevailing view was that Andromeda was located inside our own Milky Way. It was assumed to be a nebula, a region of gaseous space where stars are made.
Hubble was joined by a small but growing group of scientists — led by Heber Curtis of the Lick Observatory at the University of California — who were doubtful of this conclusion.
To them, Andromeda was incredibly odd. A large number of supernovae — exploding stars — emanated from it, many more than you’d expect from a similarly sized swath of the night’s sky. What’s more, these numerous supernovae were all very faint, as if they were very far away.
Hubble and Curtis hypothesized Andromeda was its own “island universe,” a self-contained system of stars, much like our own Milky Way. At the time, this was an outrageous idea, and was met with stiff, stubborn resistance by the scientific establishment. It would mean the universe was at least double its imagined size.
In 1920, Harlow Shapley, an astronomer who had just produced the most accurate measurement of the Milky Way to date, engaged Curtis in a fierce “great debate” at the National Academy of Sciences. Shapley held the view that the Milky Way and the Universe were on in the same, and Andromeda was a “truly nebulous object.”
More evidence was needed for either argument. And Hubble was the one to find it.
How a female astronomer helped Hubble make his groundbreaking discovery
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In 1923, Hubble was an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory, which was then home to the Hooker telescope, the largest telescope in the world.
To prove Andromeda existed outside the Milky Way, Hubble would need to measure how far away it was from Earth. If it was farther away than the estimated diameter of the Milky Way, then it couldn’t be inside the Milky Way.
Hubble’s work here stands on the back of another great but less well-known astronomer, a woman named Henrietta Leavitt.
Leavitt was an astronomer at the Harvard College Observatory in the early 1900s, where she was employed as a “computer,” a person whose job it was to support the senior astronomers by making mathematical calculations (much like computers do today). In 1908, while making calculations of a class of stars called cepheids, she made a wild discovery.
Cepheids are stars that periodically dim and brighten. Leavitt discovered that the time it took for these stars to cycle could be used to calculate how far away the stars are in the sky. With this discovery, astronomers finally had a yardstick, a way to measure the distance to objects in the cosmos.
All Hubble had to do was look for cepheid stars in Andromeda and make the appropriate calculations. Night after night, he took photographs of Andromeda with the enormous telescope, searching for cepheids. In October 1923, he found one, blinking in one of Andromeda’s spiral arms. A week more of observations allowed him to follow Leavitt’s formula and determine its distance.
This is a picture of that star, called “variable number one” — or V1 — captured by Hubble’s namesake telescope in 2011. V1 has been called “the most important star in the history of cosmology.”
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The light from V1 made it clear: Andromeda was well outside the bounds of the Milky Way. When Shapley received a letter about Hubble’s results, he reportedly said, “Here is the letter that has destroyed my universe.”
Destroyed it, yes. But its shattering also made it larger. The Milky Way was no longer the entire universe. It was more like one tiny grain of sand on a beach; a ballet with an untold number of dancers.
Hubble’s results were made public in 1925 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. And they shocked the world. As the New York Times declared jubilantly:
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This work of Hubble’s was just the beginning of an incredibly fruitful career. He’d go on to develop a system for classifying galaxies and find evidence that the universe was expanding, a finding that shook even Albert Einstein.
Today, the universe keeps growing larger. Astronomers now believe there are some 2 trillion galaxies stretching out over 90 billion light-years. Wherever we look in the cosmos, there are endless mysteries to uncover. Hubble taught us that these mysteries can be bigger and grander than we ever imagined.
As Hubble said in 1948: “Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.”
There are more adventures to be had.
Genetics Breakthrough Could Give Us a Way to Target and Kill Cancer
IN BRIEF
- Approximately 20 percent of all cancers have a KRAS gene mutation that makes them incredibly resistant to chemotherapy.
- A new study focuses on inhibiting other genes to create combinations lethal to cancer cells driven by a KRAS mutation.
- Findings reveal micorRNAs as relevant tools for possibly identifying therapeutic methods of treating cancer in the future.
A NEW APPROACH
Approximately 20 percent of all cancers have a mutation that makes them incredibly resistant to chemotherapy – a gene called KRAS. KRAS-mutant cancers also have very low survival rates because they are much harder to treat. Given this, researchers have focused their efforts on ways to inhibit KRAS activity. But scientists from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine alongside Moores Cancer Center have taken a unique approach that may prove to be more effective.
“Instead of trying to deter KRAS itself, we took the approach of looking for other molecules that, when inhibited, are lethal to cells only when KRAS is also mutated,” said Tariq Rana, PhD, professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center who is the senior author of the study.
MICRORNAS AS SUPPRESSORS
The new study, published October 3 in Cancer Research, focuses on inhibiting other genes to create combinations lethal to cancer cells driven by a KRAS mutation. For the study, researchers used microRNAs – which normal cells use to control what genes are turned on or off, and are less active in cancer cells. They found that one microRNA, miR-1298, could effectively suppress KRAS-dependent cell growth in colorectal and lung cancer cells.
Basically miR-1298 was able to inhibit the growth of two specific proteins in cancer cells—FAK and LAMB3, which in turn, led to KRAS-driven cancer cells to stop growing.
Using a mouse model, Tariq Rana, PhD, and colleagues discovered microRNA miR-1298 specifically kills cancer cells with a common mutation in the KRAS gene.
Their findings revealed microRNAs as relevant tools for possibly identifying therapeutic methods of treating cancer in the future. To date, traditional methods of killing cancer cells are toxic and harmful to healthy cells. This study points us to a specific target instead, higlighting how LAMB3 can be used as a prognostic biomarker, where efforts to eliminate KRAS-driven cancers can be centralized, thus minimizing dangerous effects to the rest of the body.
The speed of light might have outpaced gravity in the early days of the Universe.
A new hypothesis that challenges Einstein’s physics could soon be put to the test
Is the speed of light really a constant?
The speed of light in a vacuum, or c, is pretty much the most fundamental constant in physics – and according to the general theory of relativity, gravity travels at the same rate.
But a new study suggests that the speed of light might not have always been this speed. In fact, in the early Universe, light might have outpaced gravity, and this new hypothesis could solve one of the biggest problems in physics.
Best of all, unlike a lot of hypotheses put forward in theoretical physics, this one can actually be tested, so we should be able to find out in the coming years if it’s true or not.
So what’s wrong with the speed of light and gravity in the first place? This conundrum comes from the earliest days of the Universe, and something called the horizon problem.
The horizon problem basically deals with the fact that the Universe reached a uniform temperature long before light particles (or photons) would have had time to reach all corners of the Universe.
If the speed of light in a vacuum really is constant, and always has been, then how did the cosmos heat up so fast?
Usually this problem is dealt with by the idea of inflation – which suggests that the Universe went through a huge period of expansion early on.
The hypothesis is that the temperature must have evened out when the Universe was all small and condensed, back when light didn’t have as far to travel, and then it rapidly grew.
That makes sense – except no one knows why inflation started or stopped, and there’s no way of testing it.
An alternative hypothesis has now been put forward by physicist Niayesh Ashfordi from the Perimeter Institute in Canada, and João Magueijo from Imperial College London.
Their idea is this: in the earliest days of the Universe, light and gravity travelled at different speeds.
This could mean that light used to travel faster than it does now, or gravity might have travelled slower.
Either way, “if photons moved faster than gravity just after the Big Bang, that would have let them get far enough for the Universe to reach an equilibrium temperature much more quickly,” the researchers told Michael Brooks over at New Scientist.
For now, this is just an hypothesis. But the really exciting part is that it can actually be tested.
If the hypothesis is true, there will be a particular signature left in the cosmic microwave background radiation – the leftover radiation from the Big Bang that we can still detect and study today.
The team was able to calculate that a value called the spectral index – which describes the initial density ripples in the Universe – would have a fixed value if their hypothesis is right: 0.96479.
Interestingly, the latest spectral index figure reported last year by the Planck satellite, which maps the cosmic microwave background, was around 0.968 – not that far off the number you’d expect to see if light and gravity once travelled at different speeds.
More data from the Planck satellite will be able to show once and for all whether those numbers match up.
If they don’t, the team is fine with that.
“That would be great – I won’t have to think about these theories again,” Magueijo told New Scientist. “This whole class of theories in which the speed of light varies with respect to the speed of gravity will be ruled out.”
But if the cosmic microwave background’s spectral index really does match the predicted value, then it would have huge implications for our understanding of physics.
Right now, there’s a big gap between the way the Universe seems to operate on the quantum scale (quantum mechanics), and how it operates on the visible scale (general relativity), and physicists are desperately looking for a ‘theory of quantum gravity’ to try to unite the two.
“If there is a good fit between Magueijo’s theory and observations, it could bridge this gap, adding to our understanding of the Universe’s first moments,” says Brooks.
“We have a model of the Universe that embraces the idea there must be new physics at some point,” added Magueijo. “It’s complicated, obviously, but I think ultimately there will be a way of informing quantum gravity from this kind of cosmology.”
New Nanotech Could Allow Phones to Fully Charge in Seconds
IN BRIEF
- Nanotech supercapacitors will allow seconds long charging to last for days even after 30,000 cycles.
- The technology is still at the proof-of-concept stage but is set to revolutionize small electronics.
BITE-SIZE SUPERCAPACITORS
Consumer electronic devices are becoming more powerful while shedding or maintaining size. These smaller gadgets require significant amounts of energy, which current batteries don’t exactly efficiently provide yet, especially after extended use. Scientists from the University of Central Florida (UFC) have developed a very thin, flexible supercapacitor with high energy density.
The team from UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center figured out a way to use two-dimensional materials as supercapacitors, solving the problem of size. Presumably, for a supercapacitor to hold the same amount of energy as existing lithium-ion batteries have to be much bigger than current batteries. “We developed a simple chemical synthesis approach so we can very nicely integrate the existing materials with the two-dimensional materials,” said lead researcher Yeonwoong Jung, an assistant professor at UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center and the Materials Science & Engineering Department.
The two-dimensional material used is called transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs). Not only is it small, it also allows for faster electron transfer — aka, faster charging and discharging — thanks to a highly conductive core. The supercapacitors are made of millions of nanometer-thick wires with two-dimensional material shells coating.
RESHAPING MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
The supercapacitors are also more durable. They don’t degrade quickly over time, even after being recharged 30,000 times. Conversely, lithium-ion batteries suffer in performance after about 1,500 charging cycles.
“If they were to replace the batteries with these supercapacitors, you could charge your mobile phone in a few seconds and you wouldn’t need to charge it again for over a week,” Nitin Choudhary explained.
The technology is not yet ready for commercial use, in fact, Jung is currently working to have it patented. Once it becomes available, it could be the future of electronics, from smartphones to wearables, and even electronic vehicles. “[T]his is a proof-of-concept demonstration, and our studies show there are very high impacts for many technologies,” said Jung.
Eating ice cream for breakfast makes you more intelligent, Japanese scientist claims
People who eat ice cream when they wake up have faster reaction times and are better at processing information.
Why Space Elevators Could Be the Future of Space Travel
IN BRIEF
- Expensive, unsustainable rockets have served as our primary means to exit Earth, but space elevators present a cheaper way to enter outer space.
- Although new materials are needed, space elevator missions are in motion and we could see the first elevator constructed in the next several decades.
THE SPACE ELEVATOR
Getting into space with rockets is ridiculously expensive. A NASA Inspector General report says the agency will pay Russia $491.2 million to send six astronauts into space in 2018. That’s almost $82 million a seat.
And depending on what company you launch a satellite with, it costs between $10 to $30 million for every metric ton you send into space, The Motley Fool reported this year. But there’s a vastly more affordable answer to rockets — space elevators.
Futurists have flirted with the idea of space elevators since 1895 when the Eiffel Tower inspired Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Tsiolkovksy reasoned if a tower was built 35,800 kilometers (22,236 miles) high, it would reach geostationary orbit and could carry payloads to outer space. His concept isn’t too far off from current thinking.
A 2002 NASA study by Dr. Brad Edwards re-invigorated the scientific community with what’s considered today’s modern day space elevator. According to the study, a flexible and durable cable with a space station counterweight could serve as a viable space elevator.
A mechanical “climber” — using magnetic levitation or rollers along the tether — would then carry many tons of equipment or people into orbit. Although such a project would cost in the tens of billions, it would eventually pay for itself by providing much cheaper space travel to a greatly expanded market.
A 2014 report by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) proposes a “ribbon” tether stretching well past geostationary orbit that’s roughly one hundred million times longer than its width. The “ribbon,” held down by an anchor as heavy as about 170 school buses, could carry 1 kilogram to geosynchronous orbit for $500, opposed to the current price of $20,000 per kilogram via rocket, according to the IAA report.
Dr. Peter Swan, who helped author the IAA report, is the president of the International Space Elevator Consortium, a professional society of space elevator enthusiasts advocating for the megastructure. He said space elevators offer an “opening of our vision towards humanity’s future.”
“There’s a tremendous movement of moving off-planet,” Swan told Futurism. “Space elevators could jump in and help the whole process by lowering the cost to geosynchronous and beyond.”
Swan, a satellite engineer by trade, said a functioning elevator would decrease the cost of launching satellites and missions by 99 percent.
A different concept by Thoth aims to build an elevator just 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) high to launch rocket trips that would cost less fuel. But Thoth and the IAA face the same obstacle as all other space elevator designs: materials.
THE MATERIALS PROBLEM
To build a tether capable of reaching tens of kilometers from Earth, an incredibly strong, dense, and flexible material is needed. This is because gravity decreases the farther away from Earth you are, so the tensile strength for the cable has to support roughly 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) of itself.
Engineers thought the tether could be made of ultra flexible and tough carbon nanotubes, but a study by Hong Kong Polytechnic University ruled them out this year. It’s also possible a version of the diamond nanothreads researchers discovered in late 2015 could be the key.
Swan said diamond nanothreads or boron nitride might work but still believes carbon nanotubes will be crucial in building the space elevator tether, despite the new Hong Kong Polytechnic University study.
“I don’t believe that any of the space elevator people that are working with carbon nanotubes to have been scared by that statement,” Swan said.
Point being: The materials don’t exist — yet. But we could see the right materials come out before 2030, according to a study published in the journal New Space.
The materials problem isn’t stopping the Japanese from trying to build a space elevator. The STAR-C orbiter from Shizouka University is on its way to the ISS and will test Kevlar in space to see if the material could work as a tether.
“They’re going to simulate what a tether climber could do on Kevlar. That would be a major step forward in the knowledge of space tethers and space elevators,” Swan said. “I applaud their activity.”
The Obayashi construction company has also committed to building a space elevator by 2050.
And since gravity isn’t as strong on the Moon or Mars as it is on Earth, we already have the materials — like Kevlar — to build space elevator tethers on these smaller celestial bodies. So space colonists in the immediate future could make use of the technology.
SOLAR SPACE ELEVATORS
Space elevators also present a way to generate potentially massive amounts of solar electricity. This is because solar panels in outer space — where the Sun’s light is unfiltered — can absorb vastly more energy than on Earth. The array could then radiate electricity down to Earth, bypassing power lines completely, Swan said.
“The key is to put acre-size solar arrays at geosynchronous (altitude), and radiate the energy down to the Earth at very, very low cost,” Swan said.
The 2009 sci-fi anime “Gundam 00” portrays a world where humans depend on a few orbital elevators to almost completely power the planet with solar power. Could something like it be in our future?
Swan ultimately believes space elevators will expand “the aperture of the human spirit.”
“By having extremely low-cost access to space, you can open up the human mind, so moving off-planet is not a dream, but a reality,” Swan said. “We can talk about going to Mars, going to the Moon, having a colony orbiting around the Earth.”
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