SciAm's Blindsight needs explaining

Here's a real teaser from Scientific American. They've got a video and article of a blind guy who can navigate through a cluttered space, sidestepping objects and not crashing.

They don't tell you anything about this so-called 'blindsight,' except how blind the guy is. You have to subscribe/register to read more.

So I go on wikipedia and it doesn't have anything useful either about how this is possible, and after much googling, I finally find the explanation. Cheap trick, SciAm. He's not really blind. This isn't really special to blindness in general. It only applies to people who are not "blind" because their eyes do not function. Rather, they suffer from cortical blindness - they sensory information but don't process it correctly, usually due to damage in some part of the brain.

This was clever marketing on SciAm - something people at journalistic organizations always tell you, but I thought in the name of passing on knowledge this was kind of cheap, no? And wouldn't they figure that generally people will try to see if the answer's somewhere for free online elsewhere but leave SciAm with kind of a bad taste in their mouths?

Fat Pride Folk to be angry

Yikes. A gene that makes people fat may also make people bad at problem-solving.

The fat pride community isn't going to like this one.

But how great would it be to have gene therapy solve this? Make people thinner AND smarter? The Chinese must be on to this already.

Tea Party Smarties

Well this is a little weird. Turns out tea party backers are wealthier and more educated than average. Maybe the smart ones make the not so smart ones do the physical demonstrating for them? Guess that seems clever.

Health Bill and Race

This new effort to consider characteristics like ethnicity to maximize the health bill is a pretty novel idea.

But since there is no race gene, would that complicate matters? Or will it be more like certain races are more likely to be overweight, because of income discrepancies? ...If that's the case it might make more sense to target that variable instead.

No more Botax, but Tan Tax

So much for botax. I really liked the idea but I guess more people use tanning beds than Botox, and the cosmetic surgery industry has more lobbying power than the tanning industry, so we've got the tan tax now.

Of course now the tanning salons are up in arms about the 10% tax effective in July, which is to raise $2.7 billion over the next decade (compare to Botax which was 5% to raise $6 billion).

But unlike arguing that clients are average wage-earning Janes as the botox group did and that the measure would be sexist (86% of Botox takers are women), people are saying it's racist(against pale-skinned types), unfair (tax the travel industry too?), and targets mom-and-pop stores more (I'll give them that).

But ridiculously, some are saying that tanning is not all that bad for you (from the Indoor Tanning Association) and the tax interferes with what some people ocnsider a way to keep them healthy with Vitamin D.

First of all, 10% on a tanning session is $1 to $2. I don't know if that's much obstruction. Second, scientists have consistenly been calling out the dangers of tanning beds-that they're as poisonous as arsenic, they're so dangerous that there should be a minimum age of 18 requirement, and oh right they cause cancer to a scary high degree. So actually this tax is better than Botox. Making yourself look better doesn't add to the healthcare system burden, but giving yourself cancer does. Not to mention the number one reason why you get wrinkles is because of UV rays, not aging.

All this really shows it like climatologists, tannings salons need some better PR skills too.