Schizophrenia linked to mother’s lack of sunlight. I blinked to speculation about this link last summer, based on the observation that there is more of a disparity between winter and summer birth rates of schizophrenics in higher latitudes than nearer the equator, and an increasing likelihood with darker skin. Speculation was that the mediating factor is vitamin D, which the body needs sunlight to produce and which requires more sunlight in darker-skinned individuals than light-skinned. Now experiments with rats show that vitamin D deprivation produces neurobiological and behavioral changes which might be analogues to those seen in human schizophrenia. Because vitamin D can cause birth defects, pregnant women should not respond to this news by starting to take large amounts of it, but plenty of time outdoors on sunny days wouldn’t hurt. New Scientist

Spiral galaxy spins the wrong way: This beautiful spiral in Centaurus is puzzling astronomers who have determined that its spiral arms do not trail but rather lead the direction of rotation. It appears that the galaxy has swallowed another which was spinning in the opposite direction. New Scientist

Spike wrote to point out that the NY Post article about the Terry Gross-Gene Simmons interchange has been discredited. Dan Mitchell, an NPR producer/editor, wrote Jim Romenesko after Media News highlighted the Post article on the 6th:

‘ “NPR won’t post audio of Gross’s ‘Fresh Air’ spat with Simmons” is based on an erroneous New York Post story written by Michael Starr claiming that the interview with Gene Simmons of Kiss was “so controversial that NPR declined to make it available on its Website.” This is simply false. NPR aired the interview on a nationwide radio network, after all — it didn’t have to. The audio was not posted online because Simmons refused to grant permission for Internet rights to the interview, a step that is treated as routine by the overwhelming majority of guests. This fact could have been ascertained in about 30 seconds by merely picking up a phone.’

I didn’t do my homework either, it’s clear, since this added detail is covered in several of the sites I read frequently. Others have written to point out that an .mp3 of the entire conversation between Gross and Simmons is available for download, although it’s a 25-megabyte file.

Woman Sees USA In Single Cab Ride SF Chronicle

Budget Battle Turns Personal:

Tensions between Congress and the White House over the president’s budget exploded into the open yesterday when a debate over congressional prerogatives turned into an unusually bitter and personal exchange involving two of Washington’s most powerful figures: Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill.

The spat rocked an otherwise routine Senate Budget Committee hearing, where the normal dance of senatorial courtesy — and polite groveling by administration witnesses — suddenly vanished. O’Neill, telling Byrd he wouldn’t “cede to you the high moral ground of not knowing what life is like in a ditch,” struggled with his emotions by taking deep breaths.

Byrd, 84, chairs the Appropriations Committee and is arguably the fiercest defender of Congress’s interests. He spent 15 minutes berating O’Neill, a blunt former corporate executive, for a speech O’Neill made last year asserting that congressional rules “created by just ordinary people” are “like the Lilliputians tying us to the ground.”

Byrd noted that the administration’s glossy new budget document includes a cartoon of Gulliver tied down by Lilliputians. He denounced the cartoon — one of several illustrations of White House sentiments and criticisms — as “nonsense” that belittled how Congress represents the interests of Americans.

Since Monday’s release of the president’s budget plan, which vividly poked fun at alleged congressional pork, lawmakers from both parties have bristled at the administration’s rhetoric. Washington Post

Terrorism ‘expert’ takes on his critics: ‘In recent years, Emerson’s media presence has dimmed—perhaps because, as he has claimed, pro-Arab groups in the U.S. tried to blacklist him, or perhaps because he’s the type to see a terrorist under every kaffiyeh. In 1995, The Nation accused him of promoting anti-Arab “hysteria,” and in 1998, NPR dropped him as a commentator after he made what an NPR ombudsman called “unsubstantiated allegations,” such as linking the Oklahoma City blast to Arab terrorists. These days, Horowitz can only name one publication that Emerson writes for—The Wall Street Journal. According to one journalist, he has been “bounced from the mainstream” and spends his time “raising money from wealthy Jews.” ‘ Village Voice

A Safe Place for a War: Nicholas Kristof, reporting from the Phillippines, reinforces my speculation of yesterday that there is no hard evidence of recent links between Islamic insurgency there and al Qaeda. “If the Philippines can get $100 million because of a gang of 60 crooks, think how much New York City is entitled to!” NY Times But sustaining Dubya’s rantings and ratings requires an ongoing war against a global terrorist conspiracy no matter how implausible…

Arrogance and fear: the American paradox — Anatole Kaletsky: “The greatest danger to America’s dominant position today is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is the arrogance of American power.” The Times of London

“The quiet and high-minded National Public Radio airwaves were shattered earlier this week by a name-calling confrontation between – of all people – tongue-waggling KISS frontman Gene Simmons and soft-spoken interviewer Terry Gross…The interview was apparently so controversial that NPR has declined to make it available on its Website where it posts at least portions of nearly all other interviews that appear on “Fresh Air,” one of its most popular daily shows.” NY Post [via fimoculous]

Saudi Leader’s Anger Revealed Shaky Ties; Bush’s Response Eased a Deep Rift On Mideast Policy; Then Came Sept. 11 Washington Post

1,300 People May Sue NYC Over Handling of WTC Aftermath. ‘From rescue workers who say they have lung problems to business owners who say their shops were damaged, 1,300 people have given notice they may sue the city for a total of $7.18 billion over the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack. The claims involve injuries or damage caused not by the attack itself but by the alleged negligence of the city during the recovery and cleanup.’ Yahoo! News

This is a particularly outrageous, blatant example of how pharmaceutical company sponsorship of medical research and scholarship is done: ‘It said the drug was the best thing since sliced bread. I don’t think it is’ — David Healy, director of the north Wales department of psychological medicine Guardian UK

A reflection on Camille Paglia, penises, vulvas and dumb punditry from UFO Breakfast

Critical IP sucks.

How To Marry a High-Quality Woman — I hope this is a send-up to lampoon the Aryan ethic, but unfortunately I think it’s a for-real Neonazi guide to propagating the master race by finding true love, romance and domination over your Nazi dream goddess. For example:

‘State Openly that You Want to Be a Patriarch. Say things like, “I want to have at least four kids, and I want my wife to stay home while they’re young,” or “I’m looking for a High-Grade Woman to have my kids, none of this messing around stuff; I don’t play the dating game.” Say it simply and definitely, in a way that closes the door to questions. If a feminazi starts yelling, who cares. Extremely good-looking men actually have a disadvantage dating high-quality women because they’re assumed to be promiscuous or carrying a disease. She’s seen the Jew values on TeeVee and the phony “sexual double standard” myth is burned into her head, so it’s only reasonable of her to be suspicious of you.’ [via the null device]

Full of a pitiful and horrifying blend of xenophobia, grandiosity and whining inferiority complex.

On the other hand, here’s a review of Can Love Last? by Stephen Mitchell: “A philosophically inclined psychoanalyst’s daring final work explains that the ecstasy of romantic love doesn’t fade away over time — we kill it.” Salon

Are we hardwired for God? “In all cultures we find notions of gods, spirits and ancestors as supernatural agents, who are remarkably similar to humans. Where do these ideas originate? And why do they persist so strongly in the face of science? In this exclusive essay from the London Review of Books, WG Runciman examines the argument that recent advances in evolutionary psychology hold the answer to the ‘God-question’.” LRB via Guardian UK

Thomas Murray, President of the Hastings Center: Psychology should be in dialogue with bioethics. “Too often, the interactions between social scientists and philosophers were futile and frustrating exercises in mutual unintelligibility. Philosophers were trained to map the intellectual landscape, parse whatever interesting concepts they found there, and articulate and critically evaluate ethical arguments. Philosophers were, with rare exceptions, not trained to create, interpret, or critique empirical studies. Social scientists, on the other hand, understood how to frame and answer certain kinds of empirical questions – those within the purview of their field and methodologies – but they were often mystified by the forms of reasoning and argument employed by philosophers. What does a Kantian distinction between heteronomy and autonomy have to do with whether physicians should tell patients they have cancer? (In 1979, whether to tell the truth about a grave diagnosis such as cancer was still a contentious issue within medicine.)” APS Observer

Review: Mind in Everyday Life and Cognitive Scienceby Sunny Y. Auyang: “If you want to know how the human mind works, the one thing you shouldn’t do is ask a cognitive scientist. So says science writer and Ph.D. physicist Sunny Auyang, whose latest polemic suggests that the psychologists, computer scientists, linguists, philosophers and neuroscientists whose mission is to investigate our mental functioning are less purveyors of scientific truth than nutty zealots with a pathetically overdeveloped sense of their own importance.” American Scientist

1,300 People May Sue NYC Over Handling of WTC Aftermath. ‘From rescue workers who say they have lung problems to business owners who say their shops were damaged, 1,300 people have given notice they may sue the city for a total of $7.18 billion over the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack. The claims involve injuries or damage caused not by the attack itself but by the alleged negligence of the city during the recovery and cleanup.’ Yahoo! News