Are you a “supertasker”?

Do you consider yourself a “supertasker”? Think again. According to a new study out of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, only 2.5 percent of the general population has the ability to be a true “supertasker”. To test multitasking abilities, study authors Jason M. Watson, Ph.D and David L. Strayer, Ph.D, evaluated the ability of 200 participants to drive safely while talking on a cell phone.

First, participants were only assessed on their performance of simulated driving. The test was then performed again with a simultaneous cell phone conversation that tested memory and math skills. TechNews Daily reports that performance was evaluated in four key areas, including brake reaction time, following distance, memory, and math execution.

Only five “supertaskers” (three men and two women) excelled at operating the driving simulator while simultaneously having the cell phone conversation without any loss in performance on either task. Not only did they excel at each task, but their memory abilities actually increased by 3 percent.

On the other hand, the driving skills of the majority of participants suffered with the addition of the cell phone conversation. According to MedPage Today, it took these participants 20 percent longer to hit the brakes when needed and many failed to keep pace with the simulated traffic. Memory and math skills also decreased.

Study author Watson, says:

“…while we’d probably all like to think we are the exception to the rule, the odds are overwhelmingly against it. In fact, the odds of being a supertasker are about as good as your chances of flipping a coin and getting five heads in a row.”

MedPage Today also reports that Strayer and Watson do not believe this is fluke or the result of some being more experienced at talking and driving at the same time. They suggest that these individuals have a rare genetic or biological advantage when it comes to the ability to multitask, and they plan to continue their research on “supertaskers” in the future.

The study will be published in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.

9/11 claimants: toxic dust caused 387 illnesses

Much like the controversy over Gulf War Syndrome, the argument that those who rushed to ground zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers have been poisoned by air loaded with toxins will never be settled. As Jeff Stier of the American Council on Science and Health notes in the New York Post, the plaintiffs, who have just had a settlement agreement tossed out of court because it wasn’t large enough, claim that  387 different diseases or conditions result from the expoure, including ”multiple forms of cancer, skin ailments, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, asbestosis and asthma.”

The problem is that there is no way that science can even begin to prove this level of causality. Asthma? Dust, says Stier, can aggravate asthma, but not cause it in adults. More to the point, the studies being used to advance some of the claims have been designed to do so:

“…a recent study from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine claimed that 9/11 police officers might be at higher risk of heart disease. It was a classic case of data-dredging by those trying to find a disease on behalf of plaintiffs.

The study relied on subjects who were self-selected — that is, the people who came in were the very class of people who may be suing. The researchers then compared the results from these “volunteers” to the general population — without, the lead researcher herself admitted, allowing for the possibility that NYPD cops may already have a higher risk of heart disease. Even then, they found no increase in illness — just an elevated rate in a single measure (of many that they examined) that’s predictive of future disease.”

This is the sort of criticism that plaintiffs, naturally, don’t want to hear; it may seem axiomatic to those responders who are ill that ground zero is responsible; it may even seem cruel and unfeeling to say that they might be just as ill today if one could look across the Manhattan skyline and still see the twin towers; but rigorous epidemiological evidence is what guarantees fact from fancy and fancy from fraud.

Read more:

White, well-educated and wealthy parents spread measles risk

A new and fascinating study in the journal Pediatrics examines what happened when an intentionally unvaccinated seven-year old boy caught measles on a trip to Switzerland in January 2008 and brought it back to San Diego. Despite the city having a 95 percent  immunization rate, clusters of intentional under-vaccination, particularly in upper income and private school enclaves, led to the largest outbreak of measles in the city since 1991. 839 people were exposed to the disease, which sickened 11 other children, 8 of whom were unvaccinated, apparently due to parental fears of adverse vaccine effects or the misguided belief that “natural lifestyles” would confer protection (the other three were too young to have been vaccinated). As MedPage Today reports (only an abstract of the study is available free online), the primary infected or “index” child,

“directly infected his two siblings, two classmates, and four children who were treated at the same clinic. The index patient’s sister then infected two of her classmates. One of the index patient’s classmates infected his brother, bringing the total number of cases to 12.”

What the study call’s “a vigorous outbreak response” by city health officials prevented further transmission, but it came at a cost of $176,000 or $10,000 per case, which included the cost of quarantining infants too young to be vaccinated. Unsurprisingly, MedPage Today reports a sense of alarm among doctors over the possibility that misguided fears over vaccine risks and unrealistic expectations about ”natural lifestyles” will increase the size and number of unvaccinated clusters and that herd immunity will not prove a bulwark against the transmission of disease, especially to infants who haven’t yet received their vaccinations.  What is most troubling is that such clusters were most likely to occur among white, well-educated, and well-to-do parents.

Dr. Lynette Cardoch on Climate Change

From our collaborative site, Ourblook.

OurBlook interview with ecologist Dr. Lynette Cardoch

In 2007, 489 members of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union were surveyed for the Statistical Assessment Service at George Mason University. 84 percent said that they personally believed human-induced warming is occurring and it poses a very great danger, 74 percent believed that currently available scientific evidence substantiates its occurrence. Do you agree with the views of these scientists? Why or why not?

LC: I agree. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that has led to these scientific conclusions, making it very difficult to dispute that humans have had an impact on the global system.

Why do you believe that such radically different opinions exist regarding an issue that should ideally be gauged by scientific data?

LC: Unfortunately, the message of climate change has been linked with political agendas on both sides. It’s important that we understand the science and implications of climate change, so we can convey a message that inspires action, not fear. In fact, the MWH Climate Change Schools Program works to do exactly that. We empower students by giving them the knowledge and skills they need to help reduce the effects of global climate change.

Climate change also affords Americans an amazing opportunity to be on the global technological forefront of renewable energies, alternate transportation cities, and city planning. It’s really about embracing the new economic challenge and putting American innovation to work.

There has been record-breaking cold weather across the northern half of the earth so far in 2010. Do you see greater scientific skepticism toward the global warming concept, greater support building, or about the same?

LC: I’m sure there are folks under two or three feet of snow begging for global warming. I wouldn’t tie any cold and heat spells to impacts of global warming, though. Sure, climate change studies do predict increased temperature extremes, as we are seeing now. However, we also need to recognize there are other global climatic cycles, such as the ENSO (EL Nino Southern Oscillation), for example, that cause disruptions on a periodic basis.

Getting the finger from germs

New research from the University of Colorado at Boulder finds that germs might be as useful as fingerprints, potentially a major breakthrough for forensic scientists. It was revealed that touching objects, such as keyboards, leaves a unique bacterial DNA that can be matched to the person who left it behind.

According to LiveScience, previous research by Noah Fierer and his team had found that a person typically carries around about 150 bacterial species on their hand, and on average only 13 percent of those species are shared between two people.

Lead study author, Fierer says:

“Each one of us leaves a unique trail of bugs behind as we travel through our daily lives… While this project is still in its preliminary stages, it could provide a way for forensics experts to independently confirm the accuracy of DNA and   fingerprint analyses.”

Fierer’s team performed three experiments to test the accuracy of bacterial DNA. In the first test, they swabbed keyboards from three different computers for bacteria and were able to match each computer to its owner. A second experiment used swabs from nine different computer mice, where they also matched each to its owner.

The samples were compared to the DNA of 270 random people, and according to LiveScience, it was discovered the swabs from the computer owners were a significantly closer match to the bacterial DNA on each computer than the random samples. In a third experiment, BBC reports it was found that hand bacteria can survive at room temperature for up to two weeks and still provide an accurate analysis.

BBC also points out the technique is currently 70 percent to 90 percent accurate, and hopefully this percentage will increase as both the technique and technology improve. The study was published in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A talking cure (literally)

A new study finds that people who have substantial conversations on a regular basis appear to be happier than those who engage in mostly small talk.

In order to conduct the study, psychologists from the University of Arizona and Washington University in St. Louis, had 79 college students carry a portable electronically activated recorder for four days. HealthDay reports that the device samples 30 seconds of sound every 12 and a half minutes, resulting in over 23,000 recordings. The study participants also took tests in order to evaluate personality and happiness level.

While analyzing the recordings, the researchers labeled each conversation as either small talk or substantial conversation. HealthDay provides these examples:

“For instance, small talk: “What do you have there? Popcorn? Yummy!” But the conversation that went like this was substantive: “She fell in love with your dad? So, did they get divorced soon after?”

According to LiveScience, participants who were found to be happiest spent 70 percent more time talking and 25 percent less time alone than those who were unhappiest. Compared to the unhappiest participants, the happiest students also had two times as many meaningful conversations and only engaged in about one third the amount of small talk.

All in all, more substantial conversations could potentially increase happiness, although this study does not prove a cause and effect relationship. The study is published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science.

In other happiness news, another new study finds that when it comes to happiness, it’s better to spend money on experiences, such as vacations, rather than material things. This study can be found here.

George Stephanopoulos fears for 2,000 missing kids a day

In the annals of statistics abused by the press, there is one, true leader in the field, a number so lacking in context that it is tantamount to fraud to report it, and yet it is an undying staple of scare stories: I speak of the number of missing kids in the U.S. George Stephanopoulos spoke of it, too, on Good Morning America over the weekend. In a segment on Jaycee Dugard, kidnapped at the age of 11 and raped for 18 years, Stephanopoulos said,

“Jaycee, in some ways, is one of the lucky ones. She finally made it home. But more than 2,000 children are reported missing every day.”

As Lenore Skenazy, a one woman liberation movement for children oppressed by mindless adults, points out, if that’s your definition of luck, what did that mean for the other 2,000 - they’re still in captivity? Dead? The reality is that abductions like Jaycee’s are very rare. As Skenazy notes:

“Two thousand missing children a day is 730,000 kids a year. But the number of children who are actually kidnapped and held overnight by strangers is, according to FBI stats, 115“

That’s one child every three days. Roughly one child a week is killed. These are not comforting statistics, but they are not the epidemic reported by Good Morning America. One of the commentors on Skenazy’s post puts the social impact of this kind of reporting into an interesting perspective:

“Whenever I give these stats, people’s eyes bug out of their heads and either I hear, ‘Oh… huh.’ Or ‘Yeah but what if…’

The only one I didn’t hear that from? My sister the cop. Go figure. She grinned at me and was delighted to hear I knew the stats and delighted that my kids were outside playing and walking to school. She, of course, gave me tips on what predators **do** look for (like kids with old shoes, unbrushed hair – these two things mean kids aren’t cared for/kids wearing glasses, kids wearing coats – these are kids that are being watched over).

Now that’s useful information.

Vital Statistics

Doctors intimidated by internet-informed patients?

A new study published in the British Journal of General Practice examines doctors’ responses when patients come to appointments armed with extensive internet research. While there were physicians that embraced internet research; some felt anxiety that a patient might be more knowledgeable about a condition than they were. The participating doctors also reported feeling anxiety over potentially losing control of the appointment. This BBC article by Dr. Anthea Martin provides more details on the study and warns doctors not to dismiss the concerns of these patients she dubs “cyberchondriacs”.

What are the most popular foods in America?

The Agriculture Department, which has been examining food trends in America since 1909, finds in the last thirty years, the consumption of cheese has increased significantly to 31.4 pounds per person. The Agriculture Department says this is increasingly due to the attempts to add flavor to quick-serve meals and the result of frequently eating out or ordering in. Chicken is also experiencing a gain in popularity, giving beef a run for its money as America’s most popular meat. The site says this is a result of recent consumer health concerns and chicken products now being marketed for convenience.

Happiness can improve heart health

A new study finds that happiness is associated with lower risk of heart disease. Over 1,700 people in Canada and Nova Scotia participated in an initial assessment that rated their happiness level and was used to predict their chances of having a heart attack in the next ten years.

When revisiting the participants ten years later, it was discovered that 145 had suffered at least one heart attack. The researchers found that the happier the participants were at the start of the study, the less likely they were to have suffered from a heart attack.

Online news gaining popularity

According to a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the web is now the third most popular resource for daily news, passing both newspaper and radio, but still behind local and national television news. The report says the public’s relationship with the news has become “portable, personalized and participatory”.

92 percent of Americans claim they use multiple resources for news on a typical day, including websites, blogs, social networks and television. The report cites two main reasons for the transformation of the way people receive news – the rise of social media and the increasing popularity of smart phones which allow news to be accessed anytime and anywhere.