The most recent Edge issue cites

… Kahneman’s view that “the administration’s unwillingness to face reality in Iraq reflects a basic human aversion to cutting one’s losses—the same instinct that makes gamblers stay at the table, hoping to break even.”

as well as another one of Kahneman’s ideas (Show me more…)

No, I am not confusing here vitamin A and vitamin D as done in the early days of vitamin research. This post is really about vitamin A (but with similar nomenclature problem as with vitamin D). Retinol is ingested in a precursor form; animal sources like liver (–>cod liver oil) contain retinyl esters, whereas plants like carrots contain carotenoids. (Show me more…)

I am currently reading “The Lucifer effect” by Philipp Zimbardo. Having seen many terrible things like a woman killed by more than 30 stabs with knife I know that theodicy is the main problem in theology – when the bad “situational power triumphs over individual power”. Zimbardo examines the process of transformation when good or ordinary people do bad or evil things (Show me more…)

There are great news – PLOS ONE now allows trackbacks that will show up close to the original article. Hopefully, this new feature will be extensively used. As Jim Giles speculated last year only the most successful researchers are confident enough to criticize others in this public way…

First use of liver cod oil probably originates with the fishing communities of Norway, Greenland and Iceland several centuries ago – an excellent reference is at “Cod liver oil and chemistry” 1895 by Peckel Möller. This book has a nice account on fishing at the Lofotes around the turn of the last century with many details about the cod fish migration.
The first medical use is being dated to 1789 (Show me more…)

We have a heated debate here in Munich about the Transrapid, a magnetic monorail system that could connect Munich central station & Munich airport. It is being announced as a technical innvation reducing travel time form ~30 min down to ~5 min, however, as I would have to change trains, it wouldn´t save me anything. Instead of using it as a technical showcase – the estimated budget is ~1.8 billion € – I would certainly vote for our tax money go directly into science. German science funding agency DFG has an annual budget of € 1.3 billion only, yea, yea.