SCOTUS 8 could lead to Constitutional Catch-22

Without weighing in on any of the specific candidates for nomination (by the POTUS), and trying my best to avoid any partisan arguments here, I'd just like to point out a very serious potential ramification of the US Senate GOP's attempts to block the consideration (and hence the appointment) of any nominee to the SCOTUS, sight unseen--no matter who they are. If this plan succeeds, the SCOTUS would be left with 8 members, whom most would agree are evenly divided (4-4) between Conservative and Liberal viewpoints, during the presidential election.

I know many young voters may be too young to remember, but the first presidential election in which I could legally vote will always stick out in my mind (and not only because I was taking a course on the Supreme Court at the time), and that was the Bush v. Gore election of 2000. Let's recall what happened:

• The election came down to FL's electoral votes (contested, triggering machine recounts because of the margin).
• Gore requested hand recounts in four counties (likely favorable to him), which would take longer to complete than the deadline for election certification.
• Katherine Harris considered, and denied, extensions for the four counties, and certified the election for Bush.
• Litigation ensued, and it worked it's way up the courts system.
• The SCOTUS issued a stay on the recount, voting 5-4, and the case was argued before them.
• Eventually the SCOTUS decided 7-2 for the standing issue (Equal Protection Clause) and 5-4 in favor of Harris' enforcement of the deadline, and hence decided the presidential election for Bush.

So let's recap: the SCOTUS decided 5-4 to take the case and resolve the election (by issuing a stay on the recount), and they ultimately decided the case 5-4 as well. So if the current GOP leadership in the Senate has it's way, going into a presidential election with a 4-4 divided SCOTUS, and the election becomes contested in some battleground state in a legal battle which works it's way up to the SCOTUS, we could be looking at the metaphorical snake eating it's own tail--the SCOTUS awaiting a new president to nominate the 9th justice, while the presidential race cannot be constitutionally decided until the SCOTUS makes a 4-4 ruling. Constitutional mayhem--something which I would think we would ALL want to avoid.

Because even if the lower court ruling simply stands, and it resolves the election expediently, there will always be a question of "Yes, but what if the SCOTUS had been able to take the case?" To hobble the SCOTUS from participating in their responsibilities--should the worst happen (small chance that it is) and the election be contested in federal court--is to deny such a contested election any legitimacy to whichever party ends up losing. And in the case of the 2000 election, if the SCOTUS had been hobbled at 8 justices and unable to take the case, it would have been Gore who won (the right to a longer recount) since the lower court's holding was for him.

Look--arguably any very liberal nomination from the POTUS might have exactly the same effect as well--so I'm not *just* laying this at the feet of the Senate GOP entirely. But, so far, they are the only ones who have publicly stated they will block this process--no matter who the candidate is, or when they are nominated--as long as the POTUS is still serving his last year. Hence, they are the only ones implying they are willing to risk the legitimacy of the next presidential election on their fundamental opposition to the current President (and/or his party).

Whatever you think of Obama, this kind of political gambling is not respectful of our Constitution, the SCOTUS, nor the nature and constancy of our federal government entirely. It is the desperate act of a terribly near-sighted ideology, and I sincerely hope the GOP refuses to let it take hold... Please, do your Constitutional duty, and duly consider the POTUS's nominee. Hold hearings. Take votes. That's all we ask, as Americans...

Shirley Sherrod and Disclosure: Consequences of the Modern 24-hr News Cycle

I was recently listening to an interview with Van Jones where he discussed the recent Shirley Sherrod fiasco and how it relates to the (much commented on and) perceived heightened speed with which information is passed on via our modern, highly developed communication techniques--what I'll call the modern 24-hr news cycle. And for some reason I was immediately drawn to a comparison with the novel "Disclosure" by Michael Crichton. I remember reading the book in hardback, at a tender 14--before I was old enough to see it in the theater--and walking away thinking that the book was about sexual harassment. But thinking back on the story (of which, I must admit, I now recall more from the movie than the book!) I now realize that it was about the consequences of accusations, and the power of the order of events--sometimes even overpowering truth itself.

For those who don't recall (either the novel or) the Levinson film, I won't provide a detailed recap, but just the highlights (and spoilers!): Michael Douglas' character was sexually harassed by his newly appointed female boss (also a distant ex-girlfriend), played by Demi Moore, who promptly accused him of sexual harassment the next morning before he had come to terms and decided to report it. As a result he was facing being fired, losing all of his stock options, and a rather bleak future... until he was able to provide an audio tape of the whole thing proving that she was actually the guilty one. In the denouement of the book, however, I seem to remember that he ends up losing out on a promotion he was expecting to receive because of the entire fiasco. Thus, his career had been adversely affected simply because all of this had happened to him and because the accusation preempted the presentation of the evidence.

It is easy to see parallels to the Shirley Sherrod case--she was accused of wrongdoing, and shortly thereafter evidence was provided which proved precisely the opposite of the accusation, exonerating her in rather short order (a day or two). And yet she was punished anyway... Why? In this case it wasn't exactly preemption, but because the accusation reached the broader public prior to the complete evidence, her image (and thus that of the administration) was tainted. A lawyer might describe it with a common saying: "You can't un-ring a bell."

Many have referred to this entire fiasco as a "teachable moment", but yet various interest groups believe there are different lessons to learn. I think the major, overarching, lesson to be learned is not an ideological one, and has nothing to do with politics (per se): We must carefully calibrate our 'filters' for news such that we do not rush to judgment before hearing all of the facts. In this modern age where news is passed from media outlets via Facebook, Twitter, Buzz, and other rapid-fire media sharing methods, it is often tempting to immediately pass on a salacious story in the hopes that you are the first one to "break the news" to most of your friends, especially if the news seems to provide support for views you may hold. But as popular media outlets appear to become increasingly partisan by the year, we must always consider the source (and it's bias) and remember to withhold judgment until understanding all of the facts.

While this is especially true for journalists, we all have a responsibility to do so if we are going to participate responsibly in the 24-hr news cycle by passing on information about current events by digital means. It's called digital responsibility, and it's high time we started advocating it!!!

One CAN teach an old dog new tricks

... if you give it the right drugs!!!

Scientists and researchers from the University of Texas (Dallas) have recently demonstrate a potential new neurological drug which prevents newly born brain cells from dying. One may not appreciate this discovery (as I didn't!) until one realizes that when a number of brain cells are born the typical survival rate into maturity is less than 40%!!! By directly injecting the chemical they are calling P7C3 into the rats brains, they have dramatically increased the survival rate of neuron cells and shown several other positive results including:

• Corrects hippocampal deficits in healthy mice (i.e., long-term memory, spatial skills?)
• Allows rats to continue learning well into old-age
• May prevent age-related neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer's, etc.)
• May also prevent age-related physically degenerative conditions

This last point is demonstrated by the fact that, not only did the older P7C3-quaffing rats learn and remember better than their placebo-quaffing counterparts, they also showed higher body weights and less frailty as they aged!!! This may be because the drug works on the mitochondria of cells, which are not exclusive to those in the brain. The authors are quick to point out that they have not yet identified the mechanism, only the results (as commonly comes first with biological research!).

What is even more remarkable about this work is that it is the result of a combinatorial or a broad screening research method.... What a colleague of mine at a USAF research facility calls "The Dumb Guy Approach". That is, they eschewed the traditional approach of working up a theoretical mechanism ab initio (from first principles) and choosing a drug accordingly--this process is akin to carefully crafting a perfectly aerodynamic dart and throwing it at the center of your dartboard a.k.a. the hypothesis. Instead they took a library of 1000 possible chemicals (suggested by theoretical chemists who pared down a list of 200,000 to a fairly representative sample) and tried ALL of them--akin to taking a giant box full of darts and throwing them all at the board at once, then checking to see which one stuck. And it WORKED!

Now if you're excited about this drug and want to know when it'll become available, hold your horses. It is not even out of the animal testing phase, which means it will have to be picked up by a drug company and the research effort will be handed off from academia to industry before human trials can begin. Then it will probably be several years (3-5) before the FDA can pass it through the approval process (assuming the results are just as good for humans!). But it certainly bodes well for future generations!!!

Link to news article
Link to research article
(^ for those who can access the journal Cell, by institutional subscription or otherwise)

S Korea, Internet Powerhouse of the World!

Not just the World of Warcraft... the WORLD! That's right, for those who were unaware (including myself, until I heard a recent BBC World story highlighting broadband statistics) South Korea leads the world in average broadband speed at a whopping 15 Mbps!!! That is 10x the world average of 1.5 Mbps, around 2x the second place finisher Japan, and more than 3x the pitiful 3.9 Mbps average in the US which ranks 17th in terms of speed... (source)
Not surprisingly, they also lead the world in internet traffic per capita. At an average volume of 30 GB per person per month, South Korea's internet traffic dwarfs that of the lowly 7.0 GB average in the United States, let alone the 5.0 GB of Japan or Western Europe (source)! Of course this is expected... I mean if you had a faster connection wouldn't you download more information?!?

But South Korea also boasts an excellent record of making internet access available to much of their citizenry. Perhaps not first thought of by most as one of the best examples of Democracies around the world (though certainly in Asia!), many South Koreans feel that they have an inherent right to obtain internet access; and with over 94% of households having some form access to the net, it appears they are right!!! (source)

Of course I shouldn't complain... Living in the Netherlands where we are in 4th place with 74% of households online (compared with ~51% in the U.S.!), and an average speed of 4.9 Mbps (coming in 7th place!). We actually lead the world in the number of broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants: 38.1 compared with ~33 in Korea and ~27 in the U.S. This of course must mean our broadband providers are doing relatively poorly in terms of speed, since our average traffic is so dwarfed by S. Korea... (source)

But what do all these statistics have to do with the price of tea in China? Well I'm glad you asked, because it's just countries like China (and Iran, Sudan, Cuba, etc.) that represent very different attitudes towards internet connectivity than our friends to the south of the 38th parallel! In fact, reporters without borders have labelled such countries the "Internet's Black Holes", as their governments routinely restrict the content their citizenry is able to access on the internet (source). The US has made some news on Monday, in an effort to give voice to those residents of countries which would limit or filter their access to the world wide web. As the Secretary of State puts it:
"In the 21st century, expression and assembly are carried out on the Internet so we are going to continue to support those people who wish to circumvent and be able to communicate without being blocked by their own government"
Basically what they've done is lifted the restrictions on the export of internet communications software to these countries, which should make it easier for social networking sites such as Twitter, Buzz, and Facebook to make inroads into these otherwise closed societies. This is all in the wake of the Iranian demonstrations on their Independence Day a few weeks ago, when the government shut down internet communication out of the country yet a few digital videos of the tamping-down of demonstrators made it out days later in hard copy, and were posted on the internet; and after Cuba got some bad press when a political prisoner died from pneumonia related to the conditions of his imprisonment...
The bottom-line is that information and communication has rapidly become a new vital life resource because of the ways the internet is able to deliver it to everyone and anyone's front doorstep at the click of a button. Countries that wish to compete in a global marketplace require a citizenry which is highly connected, to be able to develop in a rapidly changing world and to innovate and grow ahead of their competitors (for education, news, social movements, etc.). But perhaps even more so, countries that wish to SURVIVE are going to have to be able to brook dissent and criticism from their citizenry, and respond accordingly (i.e., as do most Democracies, for example). Because 200+ years ago, Paul Revere rode 15 miles spreading the news of revolution to 40+ riders who went on to deliver his message. Whereas today, one post on Twitter has the potential to reach millions of followers, all across the globe, in less than a minute (depending on how many Mbps you can get!)...

Related news updates:
US to upgrade fiber-optic networks...
Google to spearhead their own upgrade plans...

Talking to yourself doesn't mean your crazy (... if you're doing math!)

So I have always been a fan of talking aloud to work out problems. In high school I caught a few odd stares from students and teachers alike, and in college people just thought I was crazy. That is until I joined a study group where we talked out the problems (increasingly more difficult!) together, aloud. When it was under the guise of a conversation, I supposed, it didn't seem so odd. When I did it alone in my office in grad school, my colleagues just thought I was a little crazy (or maybe just an eccentric academic).
But new research at the University of Granada indicates that talking aloud improves both speed AND accuracy when solving math problems. They took several graduating seniors who majored in mathematics and recorded them solving difficult problems. Those who spoke aloud to themselves (as well as those who drew pictures to represent the problem) were more likely to find the solution, and did so in a shorter time, than those who didn't!!!
The paper doesn't appear to be published yet in the Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology (and I can't seem to find Revista de investigación psicoeductiva), after an exhaustive search of the internet I can only seem to find press releases and news articles about the finding. But I will update this post with a link when the publication is available on the web...
SciAm: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=find-x-and-say-your-work-09-12-28
Guardian: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6866135/Thinking-out-loud-helps-solve-problems.html
RedOrbit (more detailed): http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1801621/talking_aloud_helps_to_solve_mathematical_problems_more_quickly_according/index.html