Review: Consciousness and the Novel by David Lodge: “The dilemma is that phenomenal experience is a first person matter, and this seems, at first glance, to prevent the formulation of a completely objective or causal account.” Science, of course, is a third-person discourse. The first-person pronoun is not used in scientific papers. If there were any hint of qualia in a scientific paper, Edelman says, it would be edited out. But a scientific study of consciousness cannot ignore qualia. His proposed solution is to accept that other people as well as oneself do experience qualia, to collect their first-person accounts, and correlate them to establish what they have in common, bearing in mind that these reports are inevitably “partial, imprecise and relative to… personal context.”

Pentagon to test digital audio device to `play’ taps at military funerals

The Pentagon, chronically short of musicians to play taps at military funerals, is going to test the use of a new “push button” bugle that can be operated by an honor guard member.

A small digital audio device inserted into the bell of the bugle plays a rendition of taps that the Pentagon says is “virtually indistinguishable” from a live bugler. The person using the bugle merely pushes a button and holds the bugle to his or her lips.

“In addition to the very high quality sound, it provides a dignified `visual’ of a bugler playing taps, something families tell us they want,” said John M. Molino, a deputy assistant secretary of defense who announced the innovation Thursday. SF Chronicle [via Spike]

…At Least in Sheep: “A study of gay sheep appears to confirm the controversial suggestion that there is a biological basis for sexual preference.

The work shows that rams that prefer male sexual partners had small but distinct differences in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, when compared with rams that preferred to mate with ewes.” New Scientist

Scientists go beyond physical causes: “Brain researchers revealed some surprising new clues about the nature of chronic pain Sunday, suggesting that subtle changes in nerve endings, early life experiences and social factors — even the mere presence of an overly solicitous spouse — can make the problem worse.” SF Chronicle

“Increased aggression is commonly associated with many neurological and psychiatric disorders. Current treatments are largely empirical and are often accompanied by severe side effects, underscoring the need for a better understanding of the neural bases of aggression. Vasopressin, acting through its 1a receptor subtype, is known to affect aggressive behaviors. The vasopressin 1b receptor (V1bR) is also expressed in the brain, but has received much less attention due to a lack of specific drugs. Here we report that mice without the V1bR exhibit markedly reduced aggression and modestly impaired social recognition. By contrast, they perform normally in all the other behaviors that we have examined, such as sexual behavior, suggesting that reduced aggression and social memory are not simply the result of a global deficit in sensorimotor function or motivation.” EurekAlert!

President’s Risks Are Rewarded at Polls: “Two years after the most bizarre presidential election in American history was decided by the Supreme Court, 14 months after the unspeakable horror of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the nation voted in a mood of evident disenchantment and curious disconnection from the political system.

The American public is faced with a series of potentially life-altering issues, including the prospect of war with Iraq, the possibility of further assaults on national security at home, the reality of a prolonged slump in the stock market and the uncertainty of the economic outlook.” NY Times news analysis

“There have been too many cases in recent years of whales coming to grief in areas where Navy ships have been operating loud sonars to detect submarines.” NY Times editorial

Neuroscientists challenge tenets of intelligence testing. “Many people underscore on IQ tests because the benchmark memory test is inaccurate, a US researcher told the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Orlando, Florida yesterday. Another announced that women’s brain size could affect IQ.

In standard intelligence tests, subjects are asked to remember a string of random numbers. The widely quoted average before stumbling – seven, give or take two – is thought to reveal the capacity of our short-term memory.

This ‘magic number’ is a huge overestimate, claims Mrim Boutla of the University of Rochester in New York. She puts the real size of short-term memory at four digits, plus or minus one – so too do several other studies challenging the gold standard.” Nature

Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America edited by Peter Knight: “Paranoia and conspiracy, as most of the writers in this collection of essays seem to agree, finds it wellspring in two primary sources: the uncertainties inherent in the postmodern condition and the increasingly diffuse nature of late capitalism. In other words, the culturally destabilizing force known as globalization, and all it represents, is the main culprit.”

Daniel Pipes describes the publication by The Arab Voice, an Arabic-language daily in Paterson NJ, of a serialization of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous late-19th century forgery by the Tsarist secret service purporting to document a boastful Jewish plan for world domination. The Protocols has an enduring legacy of being used to bolster and fuel anti-Semitism throughout the 20th century Western world, including its embrace by Hitler as a centerpiece justifying the Final Solution. While I do agree that moderate Arab-Americans, like the rest of us, ought to dissociate themselves from the anti-Semitism the Protocols embodies, I’d like to know more from The Arab Voice about why they are publishing this and how it is being framed before it is used as confirmation, as Pipes does, that “Arab and Muslim institutional life in the United States remains as radicalized after 9/11 as it was before” and that “Arab and Muslim institutions are now the primary advocates of anti-Semitism worldwide, including in the West.” This seems kneejerk inflammatory neocon rhetoric and — dare I say? — could be considered as irresponsible as publishing the Protocols. Do any FmH readers, perchance, read the print version of The Arab Voice (the offending piece is not in the online version)? How is the publication prefaced?

Plane Spotters: Hobbyist or Spy? “British and Dutch aviation enthusiasts are on trial in Greece on

espionage-related charges for cataloging the movements of Greek

warplanes. Defense lawyers are struggling to explain the hobby to

baffled Greek judges.” Wired