You buck this trend if you read here.

So you think you’re in love? Further fascinating data from functional MRI, this time about the areas of the brain involved in the “brain activity” called being in love. Areas of the brain involved in visceral emotion, the experience of elation, and the brain’s reward system are activated when subjects are shown pictures of their love object but not when shown pictures of friends of the same gender as the loved one. New Scientist

Mind phantoms. A Swiss neuroscientist attempts to explain ghosts as an epiphenomenon of brain damage. While I agree that very strange sensory or cognitive experiences follow from damage to parietal regions responsible for distinguishing self from non-self, I think this idea about ghosts is quite reductionistic, regardless of one’s beliefs about the paranormal. New Scientist

Fossil Fantastic. Thanks to a reader who sent me this blink to a webpage from Los Angeles Metro Rail about the remarkable, repetitive Ice Age fossil finds of a tunnelling machine operator working on their system.

The View From the Top. President Clinton freelances for Newsweek on the Middle East peace negotiations.

R.I.P. Jan Karski at 86; Warned West About Holocaust. Begged by Warsaw Jews to take news of their plight to the west as he prepared for a secret mission from the Polish Resistance’s government-in-exile to London and Washington, Karski, who was a Polish Catholic, went into the Warsaw Ghetto to witness firsthand. The Polish Underground actually arranged to infiltrate him into a concentration camp in the uniform of a Ukrainian guard. He remained embittered for the rest of his life by the reluctance he felt from the Allied governments to act on the news he conveyed.

There were five points that the two men in the Ghetto

asked Mr. Karski to pass on to the Allied leaders:

Preventing the extermination of the Jews should be

declared an official goal of the Allies fighting Hitler.

Allied propaganda should be used to inform the German

people of the war crimes taking place and to publicize

the names of German officials taking part.

The Allies should appeal to the German people to bring

pressure on Hitler’s regime to stop the slaughter.

The Allies should declare that if the genocide

continued and the German masses did not rise to stop

it, the German people would be held collectively

responsible.

Finally, if nothing else worked, the Allies should carry

out reprisals by bombing German cultural sites and

executing Germans in Allied hands who still professed

loyalty to Hitler.

Mr. Karski later said that the Jews’ proposals were “bitter

and unrealistic,” as if they knew such a program could not

and would not be carried out, and that he had told them

their five points went beyond international law.

For the rest of his life he remembered the response of the

man accompanying Mr. Feiner: “We don’t know what is

realistic, or not realistic. We are dying here! Say it!”

Unless I’m sadly mistaken, the heroism of this man, of whom I had known nothing until I read this obituary, needs to be better known. New York Times

Tom Lehrer: Songs & More Songs By Tom Lehrer. Rhino Records re-releases most of the work from the ’50’s and ’60’s (except for his highest-charting album, That Was the Year That Was) of this perverse and reclusive mathematician-turned-songster and ’60’s cult figure. Here are the liner notes. And here is a realaudio of “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”. Lehrer has painfully consented to several high-profile interviews, like this one in the Washington Post, in conjunction with the release, in contrast to much of the intervening decades when he was content to cultivate the rumor that he was dead.

Drowned in the Desert. Several weeks ago, I posted an entry about research on using the analysis of vapors from decomposing corpses to establish the time since demise. I mentioned the counterclaims of the forensic entomologists that their accuracy in establishing time of death needed no improving upon. Here’s a review of the memoir by preeminent forensic entomologist Lee Goff.

It is a fine

thing, rare in fiction and not so common even in

non-fiction, to read an account of how an expert applies his

talent. It is the nearest thing to magic in the real world, and

not to be despised merely because Goff’s skill lies in a

place where people prefer not to look: where maggots feed

on the flesh of dead people.

As a founding father of the modern science of

forensic entomology, Goff is most often called on to

determine the time of death of a murder victim, and his

accuracy can awe…I was glad

there were no photographs in the book, only tasteful line

drawings of insects. Beetles, ants, wasps, flies, mites and a

centipede all parade in Goff’s bestiary, but it is maggots

which rock his world.

…A forensic

entomologist was baffled by the unusual size of some of

the maggots on the corpse of a 20-year-old woman found

stabbed to death by a logging road. It turned out that the

big maggots, which had grown more than twice as fast as

they should have done, had been feeding from the victim’s

nose, which was suffused with cocaine from years of drug

abuse.

By the way, Goff’s major research methodology involves murdering scores of pigs each year and planting them in the wild to study their decomposition under various circumstances. London Review of Books

The Center for Responsive Politics reviews the corporate donors to the coonventions this summer, most of whom have major issues pending before Congress. Eight corporations (AT&T, AIG, Microsoft, HP, GM, Global Crossing, Lockheed Martin and American Water Works) are nonpartisan — funding both parties’ summer bashes in equal measure, although most of them have favored the Republicans in other campaign contributions this season. The cost of the Republican Convention is an estimated $50 million, up from $30 million four years ago. The Democrats, who also spent around $30 million in 1996, are laying out $35 million this time around. Taxpayers fund $13.3 million of each convention (why on earth should we be paying for this??), and for the remainder the parties depend on corporate largesse. You can click through from this site to access lists of all the donors giving $100,000 or more to either party.

Russia’s Poison Mushroom Death Toll Rises to 95, many in one region. Gathering wild mushrooms is a popular Russian summer activity. A local variety of death cap has apparently mutated to resemble ordinary edible mushrooms; many of the victims are older people with failing eyesight.

Peter the Penguin Wades Ashore After 600-Mile Swim: In what is claimed to be the largest wildlife evacuation in history, 20,000 jackass penguins were removed from their island nesting places off the western Cape Horn in South Africa three weeks ago, trucked across the country and released to swim home. This gave environmentalists time to clean up the penguins’ habitat after it was fouled by an oil slick from a sunken ship. Almost exactly six years earlier, an oil leak from another sunken ship decimated the same penguin population; some of the currently rescued birds wear tags from the rescue effort six years ago.

Expert Says Response to Bio Attacks Can Traumatize. A researcher who has studied a sample of emergency responses to threats of biological attack (most commonly, anonymous letters allegedly contaminated with anthrax) says the current hysteria is leading to overreaction. ‘In 27 of the 40 incidents Cole studied, people who might have been exposed to a toxin were

undressed, sometimes in public, or scrubbed with a solution containing bleach. In half of the

incidents, people were hospitalized or given antibiotics.

“Interviews with officials and victims indicated that many victims were psychologically or

physically traumatized. Some suffered allergic reactions to bleach,” Cole said.’

Researcher Urges Less Use of Anti-Bacteria Products

‘Ingredients in soaps and cleansers intended

to fight bacteria could promote the growth of drug-resistant

“superbugs” that might otherwise be kept in check with little

more than a vigorous scrub.

The efforts of humans to keep their bodies and the things they

touch bacteria-free are misguided, Tufts University

microbiologist Dr. Stuart Levy told the International Conference

on Emerging Infectious Diseases.’

Tattoos Trigger Muscle Wasting in Three Men

“In the July 18th issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, doctors

from Israel report on three cases in which young men who had

recently gotten tattoos began losing muscle in the surrounding

area. All had tattoos on the upper body and suffered the muscle

meltdown in their shoulders and arms. Two also had nerve

damage.

There was no other explanation for the mysterious muscle wasting, and unfortunately, the

damage is permanent, Dr. Israel Steiner of Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem told

Reuters Health. Exactly how a tattoo would trigger muscle atrophy is unclear, he said, but

the possibilities include injury from the needle, bad technique on the part of the tattoo

artist, or the pigment in the tattoo ink. Some research, he noted, has suggested tattoo

pigment contains potentially toxic compounds.”

China-Russia Pact Condemns U.S. Missile Shield Plan. It should come as no surprise that the U.S.’s stubborn insistence on forging ahead with the missile defense plan seems to be driving Russia and China closer. They issued a joint warning about the grave security consequences of U.S. persistence. ‘Missile threats cited by the United States as grounds for NMD

(were) “actually a ruse to cover its attempt to violate the ABM,”

said the Sino-Russian statement, referring to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic

Missile treaty.’ If we really want NMD to protect us against missile attacks from “rogue states” and not to garner a strategic imbalance against other nuclear powers, I still say that the best way to show the world that we’re not disingenuous would be to gift China and Russia with the technology (if we ever perfect it…).

Three Russian organized crime figures have been using the old phantom chicken scam to defraud banks of millions.

Put some gravity back in your life: A French experiment reveals that the tubulin-based cytoskeletons of most cells will not develop properly in weightless conditions. Serious dent in prospects for prolonged space missions, and Lord knows what it’d mean for fetal development under weightless conditions, if we ever get there. New Scientist

“A four-year old Indian girl has married a stray dog in a traditional Hindu service — and it wasn’t

a case of puppy love at first sight.

The bizarre ceremony was prompted by an astrologer who told

the girl’s father that the ceremony would transfer the evil

effects of the planet Saturn from the girl to the dog.

The girl, Anju, had suffered several illnesses and had fallen in ponds, fractured bones and

burnt her hand in the kitchen, the father, Subal Karmakar, said.

…Residents of the village, mostly illiterate, enjoyed the feast but ridiculed the ceremony.

‘He is superstitious, but why should I care if he wants to waste money and give us a feast? I

enjoyed the rice, meat, curd, lentil and sweets,’ said Fakir Chand Durlab, Karmakar’s

neighbor.”

Postal Inspectors On The Rampage: THE POSTAL JUSTICE PROJECT:

“This web-site is dedicated to all postal workers, past and present, who have been subjected to criminal harassment at the hands

of the postal inspectors. Also, if you know of a friend or relative who has made complaints about their employer, the U.S. Postal

Service, that you dismissed as crazy, this web-site is also for you.”

Web piracy is hitting Hollywood sooner than the studios thought. “Hollywood, your nightmare is here. Thanks to two

pieces of software — one ‘liberated’ from Microsoft

Corp. by a global underground of video buffs and

computer hackers — high-quality digital movies,

available on a variety of Web sites, can be stored in 10%

to 20% of the space that had been required just six

months ago. That means that PC users with high-speed

DSL or cable-modem connections can download a

full-length movie such as “The Matrix” in an hour or two

from a spreading network of illicit Web sites. The entire

film can fit on a single CD or be stored on the

computer’s hard drive.” MSNBC