Joel's Hindbrain

Photo: enlewof / cc

Across parts of Australia, reports have been pouring in of strange voices chattering high in the treetops -- mysterious, non-sensical conversations in English. But while this phenomenon is certainly quite odd, its explanation isn't paranormal. It turns out that escaped pet birds, namely parrots and cockatoos, have begun teaching their wild bird counterparts a bit of the language they picked up from their time in captivity -- and, according to witnesses, that includes more than a few expletives.

Jaynia Sladek, an ornithologist from the Australian Museum, says that some birds are just natural mimickers, able to acquire new sounds based on things they hear around them. For birds kept as pets, these sounds tend to mirror human language -- but that influence doesn't cease even after said birds escape or are released back into the wild.

Once back in their natural environments, these chatty ex-pets eventually join with wild birds who, in turn, start picking up the new words and sounds. The remnants of that language also eventually gets passed along to the escaped birds' offspring, much like it does for humans.

"There's no reason why, if one comes into the flock with words, [then] another member of the flock wouldn't pick it up as well," Sladek said in an interview with Australian Geographic.

According to the report, 'Hello cockie' is one of the most commonly heard phrases feral birds are teaching in the wild, along with a host of expletives -- perhaps the last words those escapees heard after their frantic owners realized they were making a break for freedom.

The Collapse Of Meth; The Rise Of Pot

Some remarkable news in the latest National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Here's the buried lede:

The number of current methamphetamine users decreased by roughly half from 2006 to 2010 -- from 731,000 people age 12 and older (0.3-percent) to 353,000 (0.1-percent). Cocaine use has also declined, from 2.4 million current users in 2006 to 1.5 million in 2010. In addition, among 12 - 17 year olds there were decreases between 2009 and 2010 in current drinking rates (from 14.7-percent down to 13.6-percent) and current tobacco use rates (from 11.6-percent to 10.7-percent).

That's fantastic news about a drug that really does kill people, is so addictive it can destroy lives with astonishing speed, and became endemic across the country. But all this good news is not what the government wants to focus on. It's obsessed with the fast-rising rates of people who use marijuana:

In 2010, 17.4 million Americans were current users of marijuana - compared to 14.4 million in 2007. This represents an increase in the rate of current marijuana use in the population 12 and older from 5.8-percent in 2007 to 6.9-percent in 2010. Another disturbing trend is the continuing rise in the rate of current illicit drug use among young adults aged 18 to 25 -- from 19.6-percent in 2008 to 21.2-percent in 2009 and 21.5-percent in 2010. This increase was also driven in large part by a rise in the rate of current marijuana use among this population.

Maybe, just maybe, people know what they're doing. Moving off drugs that kill you toward soft drugs that you cannot overdose on and don't make you violent is a good thing. If the feds stopped demonizing marijuana they'd be cheering a more rational drug-using population in America.

Very good news.

Not good. And not true.

This crazy-experimental therapy uses a modified HIV virus to attack cancer cells in humans. Only three people have tried this therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia; two are in complete remission and one showed improvement.

Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells -- a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors -- and gave them new genes that would program the cells to attack his cancer. Then the altered cells were dripped back into Mr. Ludwig's veins.

At first, nothing happened. But after 10 days, hell broke loose in his hospital room. He began shaking with chills. His temperature shot up. His blood pressure shot down. He became so ill that doctors moved him into intensive care and warned that he might die. His family gathered at the hospital, fearing the worst.

A few weeks later, the fevers were gone. And so was the leukemia.

There was no trace of it anywhere -- no leukemic cells in his blood or bone marrow, no more bulging lymph nodes on his CT scan. His doctors calculated that the treatment had killed off two pounds of cancer cells.

A year later, Mr. Ludwig is still in complete remission. Before, there were days when he could barely get out of bed; now, he plays golf and does yard work.

(via @marcprecipice)

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

by David Eagleman

The human brain is both an incredible piece of engineering and a very flawed interface through which to experience the world. Every year or two I find it helpful to read something that reminds me of both these ideas. Eagleman, author of the delightful Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives, does a terrific job of giving us a tour of the brain in all its biased glory - in Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain.

The subtitle refers to one of the book's main ideas: that the human mind is far from a singular entity. Just as there are thousands of processes happening at the same time, there are also multiple "voices" in every brain, each contributing to the actions and decisions that are eventually carried out. Our conscious mind, which usually seems to be a singular and consistent narrative telling us what's happening in the world and in our heads, is, in Eagleman's view, like a newspaper giving us an extremely simplified summary of current events. Even those things we think we're currently deciding are more like the slightly-delayed minutes of a corporate board meeting, all of it presented to the CEO as if he or she was the only decision maker.

Eagleman's style is fun, with lots of memorable examples. A lot of the material has been covered before, in other popular cognitive science books, and at times, I wished for a bit more depth to his explanations, but in general I found the book entertaining and thought-provoking.

Senior Dogs
Across America

photographs and text by
Nancy LeVine

Carly, 16 years old, Ralston, Wyoming

Eight years ago, I began traveling the United States to photograph senior dogs. Like the diverse human pageant that Robert Frank captured in his book, The Americans, back in the 1950’s, I found dogs inhabiting all manner of American life -- and with many years inscribed in their beings.

My interest in the world of the senior dog began as my own two dogs began to approach the end of their days. This was at a time when I had lived enough years to start imagining my own mortality. I entered a world of grace where bodies that had once expressed their vibrancy were now on a more fragile path.

I saw how the dog does it; how, without the human’s painful ability to project ahead and fear the inevitable, the dog simply wakes to each day as a new step in the journey. Though their steps might be more stiff and arduous, these dogs still moved through each day as themselves -- themselves of that day and all the days before.

As mortality was weaving its way through this project, so was another American thread. The media were consumed with reports about our country’s sharp political fractures. It was all about the Red/Blue conflicts and the strident voices leading the charge. 

Yet, what I witnessed in my travels was something quite different. It was people caring for the most vulnerable dogs. Whether the senior dog was part of a family where the dog/person devotion knew no bounds or one of the elders being tended at an animal sanctuary, I saw something much deeper than our divisions, something important about where we live and the best way to die.

Listening to the current fevered debate over Social Security and Medicare, I am left with a fearful pit in my stomach when I imagine a country that might abandon the fundamental promise to care for those who have gone the distance and need at least a minimum of support to help them ease out of life. Politics of the moment may dictate such a course, but, in our true American hearts, we are better than that. I have seen it all along my journey as I photographed senior dogs surrounded by so much love, devotion and respect for life lived long and well.

— Nancy LeVine

Editor's note: We first met Nancy LeVine, and discovered her work, during portfolio reviews at Lens Culture FotoFest Paris 2010.

I don’t know about your iPhone cables but mine break, right where the cable attaches to the connector. My friends over at Holstee found a perfect hack: SUGRU PUTTY.

Team SUGRU (gaelic for play) was tired of not being able to fix broken gadgets, so they developed SUGRU, a moldable silicone that is sticky like Super-Glue and fun to use like Play-Doh:

1) Roll it to warm it up
2) Mold it the way you want it
3) Let it cure for 24 hours

Brilliant? YES! Order SUGRU over at Holstee.

They Don’t Shoot Bullies of the Day: Jennifer McKendrick (AKA Jen McKen), a self-employed photographer from Pennsylvania, recently came across a Facebook page created by a number of teenage girls as a sort of “Burn Book” for the purposes of “say[ing] mean and hurtful things about their class mates.”

“It was beyond ‘your clothes are ugly’ or ‘you don’t have any brand clothes’ or ‘you are ugly, your hair is not right,” she told 6 News. “It was vicious. It was talking about sexuality.”

McKendrick recognized some of these girls as clients who had senior picture photoshoots scheduled with her. She promptly sent those girls (and their parents) an email letting them know that she will not be able to proceed with the sessions.

“[H]ow I could spend 2 hours with someone during our session trying to take beautiful photos of them knowing they could do such UGLY things,” she wrote on her blog. “Realistically, I know by canceling their shoots it’s not going to make them ‘nicer people’ but I refuse to let people like that represent my business.”

McKendrick says she’s received emails back from two of the girls’ parents, expressing shock at their daughters’ actions and apologizing for their behavior. “So far I haven’t received any backlash but I’m ready for it,” says McKen, who understands that this decision may affect her business.

But her new policy stands, cemented with a powerful motto: “If you are ugly on the inside, I’m sorry but I won’t take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside.”