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I am not sure that any lexicographer or historian of linguistics thought of writing an essay on James Murray as a speaker and journalist, though such an essay would allow the author to explore the workings of Murray’s mind and the development of his style. (Let me remind our readers that Murray, 1837-1915, died a hundred years ago.)

The post Gin a body meet a body appeared first on OUPblog.

Although we rarely stop to think about the origin of the elements of our bodies, we are directly connected to the greater universe. In fact, we are literally made of stardust that was liberated from the interiors of dying stars in gigantic explosions, and then collected to form our Earth as the solar system took shape some 4.5 billion years ago. Until about two decades ago, however, we knew only of our own planetary system so that it was hard to know for certain how planets formed, and what the history of the matter in our bodies was.

Then, in 1995, the first planet to orbit a distant Sun-like star was discovered. In the 20 years since then, thousands of others have been found. Most planets cannot be detected with our present-day technologies, but estimates based on those that we have observed suggest that almost every star in the sky has at least one extrasolar planet (or exoplanet) orbiting it. That means that there are more than 100 billion planetary systems in our Milky Way Galaxy alone! Imagine that: astronomers have gone from knowing of 1 planetary system to some 100 billion, in the same decades in which human genome scientists sequenced the 6 billion base-pairs that lie at the foundation of our bodies. How many of these planetary systems could potentially support life, and would that life use a similar code?

Exoplanets are much too far away to be actually imaged, and they are way too faint to be directly observed next to the bright glow of the stars they orbit. Therefore, the first exoplanet discoveries were made through the gravitational tug on their central star during their orbits. This pull moves the star slightly back and forth. Only relatively heavy, close-in planets can be detected that way, using the repeating Doppler shifts of their central star’s light from red to blue and back. Another way to find planets is to measure how they block the light of their central star if they happen to cross in front of it as seen from Earth. If they are seen to do this twice or more, the temporary dimmings of their star’s light can disclose the planet’s size and distance to its star (basically using the local “year” – the time needed to orbit its star – for these calculations).  If both the gravitational tug and the dimming profile can be measured, then even the mass of the planet can be estimated. Size and mass together give an average density from which, in turn, knowledge of the chemical composition of that planet comes within reach.

With the discoveries of so many planets, we have realized that an astonishing diversity exists: hot Jupiter-sized planets that orbit closer to their star than Mercury orbits the Sun, quasi-Earth-sized planets that may have rain showers of molten iron or glass, frozen planets around faintly-glowing red dwarf stars, and possibly some billions of Earth-sized planets at distances from their host stars where liquid water could exist on the surface, possibly supporting life in a form that we might recognize if we saw it.

Guided by these recent observations, mega-computers programmed with the laws of physics give us insight into how these exo-worlds are formed, from their initial dusty disks to the eventual complement of star-orbiting planets. We can image the disks directly by focusing on the faint infrared glow of their gas and dust that is warmed by their proximity to their star. We cannot, however, directly see these far-away planets, at least not yet. But now, for the first time, we can at least see what forming planets do to the gas and dust around them in the process of becoming a mature heavenly body.

A new observatory, called ALMA, working with microwaves that lie even beyond the infrared color range, has been built in the dry Atacama desert in Chili. ALMA was pointed at a young star, hundreds of light years away. Its image of that target star, LH Tauri, not only shows the star itself and the disk around it, but also a series of dark rings that are most likely created as the newly forming planets pull in the gas and dust around them. The image is of stunning quality: it shows details down to a resolution equivalent to the width of a finger seen at a distance of 50 km (30 miles).

At the distance of LH Tauri, even that stunning imaging capability means that we can see structures only if these are larger than about the distance of the Sun out to Jupiter, so there is a long way yet to go before we see anything like the planet directly. But we will observe more of these juvenile planetary systems just past the phase of their birth. And images like that give us a glimpse of what happened in our own planetary system over 4.5 billion years ago, before the planets were fully formed, pulling in the gases and dust that we now live on, and that ultimately made their way to the cycles of our own planet, to constitute all living beings on Earth.

What a stunning revolution: from being part of the only planetary system we knew of, we have been put among billions and billions of neighbors. We remember Galileo Galilei for showing us that the Sun and not the Earth was the center of the solar system. Will our society remember the names of those who proved that billions of planets exist all over the Galaxy?

Headline image credit: Star shower, by c@rljones. CC-BY-NC-2.0 via Flickr.

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By Ted Honderich

The philosopher Descartes set out to escape doubt and to find certainties. From the premise that he was thinking, even if falsely, he argued to what he took to be the certain conclusion that he existed. Cogito ergo sum. He is as well known for concluding that consciousness is not physical. Your being conscious right now is not an objective physical fact. It has a nature quite unlike that of the chair you are sitting on. Your consciousness is different in kind from objectively physical neural states and events in your head.

This mind-body dualism persists. It is not only a belief or attitude in religion or spirituality. It is concealed in standard cognitive science or computerism. The fundamental attraction of dualism is that we are convinced, since we have a hold on it, that consciousness is different. There really is a difference in kind between you and the chair you are sitting on, not a factitious difference.

But there is an awful difficulty. Consciousness has physical effects. Arms move because of desires, bullets come out of guns because of intentions. How could such indubitably physical events have causes that are not physical at all, for a start not in space?

Some philosophers used to accomodate the fact that movements have physical causes by saying conscious desires and intentions aren’t themselves causal but they go along with brain events. Epiphenomenalism is true. Conscious beliefs themselves do not explain your stepping out of the way of joggers. But epiphenomenalism is now believed only in remote parts of Australia, where the sun is very hot. I know only one epiphenomenalist in London, sometimes seen among the good atheists in Conway Hall.

A decent theory or analysis of consciousness will also have the recommendation of answering a clear question. It will proceed from an adequate initial clarification of a subject. The present great divergence in theories of consciousness is mainly owed to people talking about different things. Some include what others call the unconscious mind.

Crystal mind By Nevit Dilmen (Own work) CC-BY-SA-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

There’s a lot to the new theory of Actualism, starting with a clarification of ordinary consciousness in the primary or core sense as something called actual consciousness. Think along with me just of one good piece of the theory. Think of one part or side or group of elements of ordinary consciousness. Think of consciousness in ordinary perception — say seeing — as against consciousness in just thinking and wanting. Call it perceptual consciousness. What is it for you to perceptually conscious now, as we say, of the room you’re in? Being aware of it, not thinking about it or something in it? Well, the fact is not some internal thing about you. It’s for a room to exist.

It’s for a piece of a subjective physical world to exist out there in space — yours. That is something dependent both on the objective physical world out there and also on you neurally. A subjective physical world’s being dependent on something in you, of course, doesn’t take it out of space out there or deprive it of other counterparts of the characteristics you can assemble of the objective physical world. What is actual with perceptual consciousness is not a representation of a world — stuff called sense data or qualia or mental paint — whatever is the case with cognitive and affective consciousness.

That’s just a good start on Actualism. It makes consciousness different. It doesn’t reduce consciousness to something that has no effects. It also involves a large fact of subjectivity, indeed of what you can call individuality or personal identity, even living a life. One more criterion of a good theory is naturalism — being true to science. It is also philosophy, which is greater concentration on the logic of ordinary intelligence, thinking about facts rather than getting them. Actualism also helps a little with human standing, that motive of believers in free will as against determinism.

Ted Honderich is Grote Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London. He edited The Oxford Companion to Philosophy and has written about determinism and freedom, social ends and political means, and even himself in Philosopher: A Kind of Life. He recently published Actual Consciousness.

The post What is consciousness? appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit Social Work: An Empirically Based Approach to Assessment and Treatment, is the first book to strongly connect Western therapy with Eastern philosophy and practices, while also providing a comprehensive practice agenda for social work and mental health professionals.  The authors argue that integrative body-mind-spirit social work is indeed a practical therapeutic approach in bringing about tangible changes in clients.  In the excerpt below we look at just one technique and one patient, Rebecca.The authors are highly regarded researchers from both Asia and America.  Mo Yee Lee is a Professor in the College of Social Work at The Ohio State University.  Siu-man Ng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration and the Associate Director of the Centre on Behavioral Health at the University of Hong Kong.  Pamela Pui Yu Leung is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong.  Cecilia Lai Wan Chan is a Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, the Director of the Centre on Behavioral Health, the Associate Director of the HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong.

Rebecca was a lady in her thirties.  When she first came to the therapist’s office, she talked with a soft and weak voice and seemed afraid of looking directly at the therapist.  She did not clearly express what she wanted.  She gave the therapist the impression that she was a timid, little girl instead of a woman in her late thirties.  After building rapport, she shared with the therapist that she was thinking about changing careers but was not certain about what she could do.  She hoped the therapist could help her develop self-confidence so that she could take charge of her life.

In the first few sessions, the therapist helped Rebecca to explore and clarify what she wanted.  She wanted to make some changes in her life, but she was afraid of the uncertainty that would go with the change.  She realized that she was stuck because she was used to staying with the familiar and not taking risks.  Rebecca also discovered that she had made herself psychologically dependent on others, her father in particular.  This dependence had developed into a pattern so that she always relied on others to make decisions for her.  Though there was an inner voice calling her to meet a new challenge and attempt a new job, she dared not, as her father did not support the idea.

During the fifth session, the therapist revisited the treatment goal with Rebecca and tried to help her to make a choice for herself regarding her pattern of being dependent on others.  The therapist said, “You told me that your goal is to take charge of your life.  Now you realize that you have developed a pattern of being dependent on others.  What are you going to do with this pattern? Do you want to keep it, or change it?”  Rebeca promptly responded that she did not want to keep the old pattern, but having been used to relying on others for so many years, she felt uncertain of what sh

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below, he looks at the new recommendation that women only undergo routine mammograms after the age of 50. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

Last week, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, a government-appointed group of 16 outside experts recommended that women should undergo routine mammograms only after the age of 50 and not 40, against the advice of the American Cancer Society and consistent with the recommendations of the American College of Physicians.

Medicine is not a precise science, so the task force could be right but it could also be wrong. Researchers and scientists make probabilistic claims from the data to offer recommendations, in this case, to the Department of Health and Human Services.

To prevent one additional breast cancer death, 1,000 women would have to get mammograms starting at age 40 rather than 50. But doing this would allegedly result in roughly 500 of the 1,000 women getting false positive results at least once, and 33 of them getting unnecessary biopsies, according to Jeanne Mandelblatt of Georgetown University.

According to researchers on the side of the Task Force, the adage that prevention is better than cure loses its intuitive force when one scrutinizes the risks associated with preventive care such as radiation or hormone therapy on abnormalities that may never have become cancerous tumors as well as the anxiety they provoke.

Now, other experts looking at the same data disagree on its interpretation. “We respect the task force, but we do not agree with their conclusions,” says Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. “We are concerned the same evidence we think supports beginning at age 40 is being interpreted by others as not supporting mammography.”

Scientists looking at the evidence can disagree, but when they do, they point to the data in order to support their conclusions. Most politicians, on the other hand, do not look at the data and they can in good faith either accept or reject the experts’ recommendations since the experts do disagree. Only a few, however, grab one set of these recommendations, and then leap a few light years ahead, with uncanny certitude, to a conclusion solar systems away from the data on which the recommendations were originally offered.

“This is how rationing begins. This is the little toe in the edge of the water,” Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “This is when you start getting a bureaucrat between you and your physician.”

This is when you put a politician between the people and responsible government. They will offer answers, explanations, and analogies with more certititude than the scientists who perused the data, and if their golden tongues wagged with enough vigor, people will believe them because it is easier to acquire information via gossip than it is to collect it ourselves.

Our indifference to doing our civic homework would not be a problem but for the fact that demagogues are able to synthesize our indifference with their certainty to create political slogans but not political solutions. Resolution and confidence are virtues only when the answers are always obvious and unambiguous. But in the world of statistics in which researchers on both sides of the mammogram debate inhabit, and in the world of politics where the meaning of public opinion and the general will fluctuates, unsubstantiated certitude is the one cancer on democacy we should be screening for, every day.

1. Cold things don’t give off the cold, they take in the heat.
2. Every time you move your muscles, 100’s of millions of tiny molecules call adenozine triphospahte are broken down into adenozine diphosphate and energy to make your muscle move.
3. Eating celery burns more calories than is actually in the celery itself.
4. Drinking cold water helps to burn calories. Your body has to heat up the water to absorb it. Heating the water up is what burns the fat.
5. People who aren’t or don’t speak German sound funny when trying to speak it.
6. Women get a heroine like rush from hearing themselves talk.
7. Jumping on a grenade that’s just landed in your trench to use yourself as a human sacrifice will work and save all the other men in your trench.
8. Emos are funny.
9. We are closely related to primates
10. I’m not sure why you’re reading this.

1. Cold things don’t give off the cold, they take in the heat.
2. Every time you move your muscles, 100’s of millions of tiny molecules call adenozine triphospahte are broken down into adenozine diphosphate and energy to make your muscle move.
3. Eating celery burns more calories than is actually in the celery itself.
4. Drinking cold water helps to burn calories. Your body has to heat up the water to absorb it. Heating the water up is what burns the fat.
5. People who aren’t or don’t speak German sound funny when trying to speak it.
6. Women get a heroine like rush from hearing themselves talk.
7. Jumping on a grenade that’s just landed in your trench to use yourself as a human sacrifice will work and save all the other men in your trench.
8. Emos are funny.
9. We are closely related to primates
10. I’m not sure why you’re reading this.

1. Hear - Use podcasts, book trailers, songs on your web sites, playlists


2. Sight - use appealing colors, brand your materials, be visible, use different channels


3. Touch - high quality products, professional papers, give them something to take away


4. Taste - Offer chocolate at signings, etc. (Don't scoff - people always go for this one)


5. Smell - Ok so 4 out of 5 ain't bad. :) Unless you can offer some type of scratch and sniff or aromatic candle.

• Your ear is (somehow) connected to your eyes and stomach. That's why when you have an ear infection you see weird spots and get nauseated easily.


• The smallest is the stirrup bone in the ear which can measure 1/10 of an inch.


• The antennae of the Butterfly are supposed to act as hearing organs.


• Clams hear with their feet.


• Bees do not have ears.


• Some scientist believe human ears evolved from fish gills.


• Mammals are the only animals with external ears (flaps on the outside).


• A giraffe can clean its ears with its 50cm (20 in) tongue.

• I'm fine. I will get better.


• Things could be much worse.


• And I've stopped drinking.


• I don't have to work out.


• If I get pulled over and suspicious of a DUI - I will fail the walk in a straight line test.


• I have a reason to ignore my hubby:) Though miraculously, I can still hear my kids fighting (yes they do that even at 5 and 18months ugh)


• I cannot be a type-rope walker.


• Dancing is out of the question.

Looking deeper

You think you're shy? Think you don't have enough money for a book tour? Think again!

Check out this homemade video project at The Bird in Snow. It's the launching pad for the world's smallest book tour. 

Ed Champion has just sent out a digital casting call for a brand new radio drama series, a hardcore recording project looking for a few good volunteers. My brain is already churning:

"I’d like to do an initial set of ten thirty-minute radio dramas — a tough and socially conscious (but not didactic) contemporary anthology series in the vein of Quiet, Please and Dimension X ... If you have a pitch for a story you’d like to write that would be acceptable for a thirty-minute production, email me and we’ll volley."

The Millions reviews a new book by Jesse Ball, and I gotta say, Samedi the Deafness sounds right up our hardboiled alley.

Check it out: "James Sim by name, witnesses an act of political murder that draws him into a web of intrigue (or, as my friend Colin's dad liked to put it, "a tissue of lies.") Confined to an asylum for compulsive prevaricators, Sim must ferret out the truth."

I live in New York City and I love to tell stories. That means I've attended lots and lots of readings. I go to book parties and storytelling events the way some people go to bowling night.

But last night I stumbled upon the secret to building the best reading possible.

Mix it up. When your reading contains an endless stream of people reading text off a page, you will lose friends and readers by the end of the first hour. If you include musicians and short films, an audience can stick with you for two hours.

It worked beautifully last night at the MDP/Sensei Bazaar. The reading blended writers, short film and music, and the crowd stayed for two and a half hours. My story was lodged in between the hilarious animation of Michael Overbeck (who's "Tongues and Taxis" scene decorates this post) and the multimedia noise rock of Miami Ice Machine.

The lesson is so simple, you can miss it: Don't just read your book/poem/short story next time, share the reading with different kinds of artists. Your audience will thank you.