Everyday Junglist
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About me. You know how everyone says to be a successful writer you should focus in one or two areas. I continue to prove them correct.
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Why I Stayed In My Run of the Mill Science Job and Wrote This Article
Why I Left My Big Fancy Tech Job and Wrote a Book - I love Silicon Valley, but it’s deeply flawed Several years ago, I was sitting in the audience at a big science conference learning about some new approach for detecting foodborne pathogens. The speaker gave a really nice presentation and I found the entire talk fascinating. The whole conference was filled with wonderful discussions, new technologies, and I had a really great three days.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Journal
Read This If You Feel Like Quitting
I know what you feel like now. You feel like throwing in the towel, giving up, and falling on your face. You feel like quitting. You are right to feel that way, you should quit, it is time, you have tried and tried and still continue to fail. It is time to admit the awkward truth, you are a failure.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Lifehack
Evolution: The Slow Life Hypothesis and It’s Applicability (or Not) In Human Beings
What is the Slow Life Hypothesis? Greatly simplified one aspect of the slow life hypothesis (itself an aspect of evolutionary life history theory) of evolutionary biology. says that as resources become more and more abundant species adapt/evolve a strategy of delayed maturation and take longer and longer to reach sexual maturity. A corollary of the theory suggests that these species take longer and longer to reach social maturity as well, and often display adolescent or even pre-adolescent behaviors at ages that were once considered hallmarks of adulthood. Finally, the theory also postulates that these species become more and more risk averse and tend to favor long term survival strategies over those that may deliver big rewards in the short term but are high risk. There is (limited) evidence for each aspect of the theory as described above in various animal species. The first postulate is by far the most well studied and the (only?) for which direct evidence has been published. The question I wish to address is if this hypothesis also applies to human beings, and, if so, what might the implications be for our long term survival as a a species. (Philosophers of science will no doubt take issue with the appropriateness of my usage of the terms hypothesis and theory in this post. I tend to go back and forth between the two suggesting an equivalence where there is only a relationship. My selection of the use of either term was based on what sounded better at the time and I am happy with the final result of my choices.)
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Humans
The Red River Gorge Ghoul
Red River Gorge is a famous bouldering/climbing hot spot to the southeast of Lexington, KY. I only took up bouldering (climbing without ropes) a little less than a year ago but quickly fell in love with the sport and have progressed in strength and skill to become a solidly intermediate level climber. I will be heading down to the Gorge this weekend and had been doing some research online when I stumbled across a few stories that mentioned a so called “Red River Gorge Ghoul or Ghost.” The stories were all quite similar and suggested that this particular ghoul is the vengeful soul of one Jasper Soderburn or J. Soder, a white supremacist/klansman of ill repute from right around the turn of the century. In addition to his virulent racism this J. Soder dabbled in some fairly abhorrent religious/occult practices and was said to have been almost expelled (or actually expelled) from the Klan because of them.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in FYI
Point Mutation in CREB1 Associated with Increased Fear of the Negative Health Consequences of CREB1 Associated SNPs
In an ironic finding of unknown significance researchers today published a paper which established for the first time that a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the gene CREB1 is associated with increased fear of the negative health consequences of single nucleotide polymorphisms in both the CREB1 locus and CREB1 gene. The linkage was found through a statistical analysis of data from the Heritage family study combined with surveys and genetic screening of 500 healthy persons who did not have an abnormal and irrational fears of the negative health consequences of CREB1 associated SNPs and 250 healthy persons who did hold such unusual, irrational, and abnormal fears. The population of CREB1 SNP fearers were not abnormally afraid of SNPs in any other health risk associated gene or locus but only of those associated with CREB1 point mutations. Until today it was not known why such specific fears were so prevalent. By regression analysis the single point mutation in the CREB1 gene accounted for 20% of the variance in fear to SNPs in the CREB1 gene associated with health risks, but only 2.3% of the variance to other SNPs in the CREB1 locus. No linkage was seen to SNPs in any other genes or loci previously associated with health risks. Researcher Dr. Stephen Tribalt said the following at a news conference announcing the result “We were intrigued by the question of the unusually high level of fear of SNPs in the CREB1 gene and gene locus and set out to find the reason why. We had hypothesized that a SNP might be responsible since, as we are learning more each day, SNPs are responsible for virtually all human physical and mental ailments. That said when we discovered that the SNP we were searching for resided in the CREB1 gene itself we were very surprised, and confused, very, very confused. Although it is a surprising and ironic finding the data supporting our conclusion is rock solid. We only needed 15 test adjustments before a statistically significant association was found in the data set. That’s great, right?, right?” At that point Dr Tribalt looked down sadly, sighed, then turned and slowly left the podium.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Longevity
Beliefs Got Nothing To Do With It
I’m not one of those people that gets super pissed every time some ignoramus spouts off about how global warming is a hoax, or the earth is only 6000 years old, or any other such silly thing. In my view, there always has been, and always will be, a subset of people who simply lack the capacity or the desire or the intelligence or whatever it is, to comprehend and/or accept basic facts about the universe and the world we live in. I simply acknowledge that and move on, I most definitely am not out pounding the pavement, evangelizing for the scientific worldview, no matter how many science journals or science based media outlets tell me I should be.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Futurism
Cat Transporter
It turns out that if you live in Australia and want to purchase a cat from the Country of Russia you can not do so directly. For a variety of reasons, some legitimate, some political, it is impossible to import domestic animals directly into Australia from Russia without a stopover in a different country from which such transactions are allowed. Surprisingly it is possible to send animals, domestic cats at least, directly from the United States to Russia. All of the facts in the above introduction were completely unknown to me until approximately three weeks ago when a good friend of mine asked if I would be willing to help her transfer two kittens from Russia to Australia.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Petlife
I Just Needed To See in the Dark, Instead I Learned How to Kill Someone With a Flashlight
I was digging through some boxes in the garage yesterday and came across a flashlight. Cool, I though to myself, I need one of these that works. Not two days prior I had dropped something on the floor in the house. The place where I live is so damn dark it’s like you’re in the Arctic in summertime or the Antarctic in winter or the reverse compliment of those two things, all year round. The point is it’s dark as fuck no matter the time of day. Because it is so dark if you ever drop anything smaller than 3 inches or so it’s basically gone until it gets sucked up by the vacuum cleaner or eaten by a cat and “found” in the litterbox sometime later.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Filthy
Human Population and Conservation
If one thinks about what broad themes unite conservationists of all stripes a few main ideas emerge. Preserve biodiversity, maintain and expand wild habitat, decrease pollution and waste. Ultimately most of these boil down to a fairly simple formula. The more we can reduce man’s footprint on the planet the better it will be for every other living thing. The easiest and most straightforward method to achieve this end would be to significantly reduce the human population of the planet. I think most people understand this at some base level and I believe it explains a lot of the negative attitudes many people instinctually express when asked their feelings on the matter. Essentially the conservationist is asking us to admit that we are the problem, we are a net negative for the health of the planet, all living things would be better off if we ceased to exist. I know that few environmentalist/conservationists would put it exactly this way though many probably believe it. In point of fact until very recently I did too.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in Earth
Biohacking Should Never Be Spoken Of Again
“Amateurs run medical experiments on themselves, joining a long and gory tradition among scientists.” This is the kind of statement that really irritates me. On the one hand it suggests that the people doing this are amateurs. That cannot be denied. For the most part they have little to no formal training, and even less skill or ability. I can accept that, however it goes on to equate these amateurs with other “scientists” who have tried similar approaches in the past. These people are not scientists, and to suggest that they are is to give them way more credit than they deserve and only serves to encourage more dangerous and ill advised auto-experimentation. Frankly I could care less about how dangerous it is. Your body, your call, but I hate the idea of time being wasted and resources being diverted to deal with the consequences when these “experiments” inevitably crash and burn.
By Everyday Junglist4 years ago in 01
