The Science of Handwriting 

As we jettison the pen and pencil in a digital world, we are changing the way our brain thinks about writing

 

 

 

In Brief

By the Letter

• Little attention has been paid to the dwindling status of handwriting, both in schools and in life more generally.
• Learning letters in an unfamiliar alphabet by hand rather than typing may lead to longer-term memories. One reason may be that seeing handwriting, but not typed letters, elicits motor activity in the brain.
• This and other findings suggest that handwriting has unique cognitive properties that help to shape how children learn to read and write.

I am writing this article in bold, retroexperimental fashion, using a technique found rarely in the modern publishing world: handwriting, using pen and paper, those dead-tree tools seen by technophiles as historical curiosities, like clay tablets or Remington typewriters.
Why do such a thing in a keystroke age? In part I do so because handwriting is becoming a marginal activity, in society and in my life. We type more than ever before, and it's not uncommon to meet people who have ceased writing by hand altogether, their scripts withering like vestigial limbs.

A Country Built by Obsessives

Author Joshua Kendall argues that compulsiveness is a major force in American history

By Gareth Cook

Joshua Kendall Image: Rachel Youdelman

Thomas Jefferson, the third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence, kept detailed accounts to track every penny he spent. Steve Jobs was famously fastidious about the cleanliness of his factories, flying into rages when he found too much dust. In a new book, America’s Obsessives, author Joshua Kendall argues that obsessive compulsive personality disorder has shaped many great figures who have in turn shaped our country. He answered questions from Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. 
Gareth Cook: How did you first become interested in obsession as a historical force?
Joshua Kendall: I had written two biographies of obsessive wordsmiths—one on Peter Mark Roget, the creator of the Thesaurus and one on Noah Webster, the author of America’s first dictionary. In examining their lives, I noticed how obsessionality—a love of rules, order, details, cleanliness and lists—could be a big asset for a lexicographer. And that link is clear. If you love sitting in a room for hours at a time compiling word lists, chances are that you have what it takes to write a good dictionary. But as I was completing the Webster bio, I began reading Jefferson’s letters and diaries—an arch Federalist, Webster was a fierce political enemy of our third President—and saw that Jefferson, too, was a list-maker. Jefferson kept track of every cent he ever spent in his copious account books; as president, he also drew up a mega-chart of all the vegetable markets in Washington, DC. It was then that I had an “aha moment;” I began to sense that many movers and shakers in various fields—from politics to information technology to science and sports—were obsessives. Besides Jefferson, my book features six other icons, including Henry Heinz of ketchup fame, Charles Lindbergh, beauty tycoon Estee Lauder and the Boston Red Sox superstar, Ted Williams.
I want to start a national conversation about how this character type is well suited to superior achievement. And I also seek to inject the element of irrationality into our understanding of obsession. In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how it takes “10,000 hours” of practice for someone like Bill Gates to become a computer whiz in high school. But obsessionality often involves more than just doing the same thing over and over again; in its clinical sense—the way the American Psychiatric Association defines it in the DSM—it goes hand-in-glove with certain quirks. Steve Jobs, whom I discuss in my prologue, was a cleanliness nut. Back in the 1980s, he used to don white gloves and do frequent dust checks on the floor of the Apple factory. And whenever he saw a few specks, he would yell at his plant manager to clean them up. Jobs’s rationale was that if his company didn’t have the discipline to keep everything spic and span, it wouldn’t be able to design “insanely great products.” It’s ironic that the most successful obsessives—who, by definition, love control—tend to be a little bit out of control. But somehow this eccentric behavior is often crucial to helping them attain their lofty goals.
Cook: There are people who are debilitated by obsessive thoughts. Can you explain what precisely you mean by obsessive, and explain when it can have a positive influence?
Kendall: The term obsessive is thrown around a lot. Many people will say, “Oh, I have to clean up my kitchen now because I have a little OCD.” But by “obsessive,” I don’t mean people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). OCD can be incapacitating, and those who suffer from this disorder are unlikely to start Apple or fly across the Atlantic on a piece of wood like Charles Lindbergh. These people are haunted by thoughts that just won’t go away; someone with OCD might be constantly worried that the house will burn down; as a result, he or she might be afraid to go out even after checking a thousand times that the burner on the stove is off. The icons covered in my book are saddled (or blessed) with a related condition called obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). While the obsessions and compulsions in both disorders can revolve around the same things—such as cleanliness or order—OCD is an anxiety disorder and OCPD is a character disorder. Rather being impaired by their intrusive thoughts, those with OCPD celebrate them. Like Steve Jobs, Henry Heinz prided himself on his company’s clean factory; for decades, his plant in Pittsburgh was a must-see destination for tourists. My icons were productive obsessives; they found a way to channel that which they couldn’t stop thinking about into some spectacular achievement. As a boy, Ted Williams thought of nothing else but hitting. As he once said, “When I wasn’t eating or sleeping, I was practicing my swing.”

Americans Migrate to Sun and Sea

Population rises fast along the oceans, putting people at risk from severe weather

According to recent research, extreme weather could cause four times as much economic loss in the U.S. by 2050 as it does today. And that’s without any increase in the frequency or intensity of storms.

The main reason for greater risk is that the population in areas prone to rough weather—including the east, west and Gulf coasts—is rising more rapidly than in many other parts of the country, according to Benjamin L. Preston, a senior research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Greater wealth per person—more valuable homes and possessions in harm’s way—is the second leading factor.
Population from 1960 to 2009 went up fast in areas along the oceans, notably Florida and California (see map). The increase is a combination of general population growth and people moving to those regions from elsewhere in the country.
Population Growth (ratio of population in 2009 versus 1960)

For more read "Cost of Storm Damage Will Rise Sharply, Even Without Climate Change" in the August issue of Scientific American.

The Science of the Great Molasses Flood

In 1919 a wave of syrup swept through the streets of Boston. Fluid dynamics explains why it was even more devastating than a typical tsunami

By Ferris Jabr

8
inShare

On January 15, 1919—an unusually warm winter day in Boston—patrolman Frank McManus picked up a call box on Commercial Street, contacted his precinct station and began his daily report. Moments later he heard a sound like machine guns and an awful grating. He turned to see a five-story-high metal tank split open, releasing a massive wall of dark amber fluid. Temporarily stunned, McManus turned back to the call box. "Send all available rescue vehicles and personnel immediately," he yelled, "there's a wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street!"
More than 7.5 million liters of molasses surged through Boston's North End at around 55 kilometers per hour in a wave about 7.5 meters high and 50 meters wide at its peak. All that thick syrup ripped apart the cylindrical tank that once held it, throwing slivers of steel and large rivets in all directions. The deluge crushed freight cars, tore Engine 31 firehouse from its foundation and, when it reached an elevated railway on Atlantic Avenue, nearly lifted a train right off the tracks. A chest-deep river of molasses stretched from the base of the tank about 90 meters into the streets. From there, it thinned out into a coating one half to one meter deep. People, horses and dogs caught in the mess struggled to escape, only sinking further.
Ultimately, the disaster killed 21 people and injured another 150. About half the victims were crushed by the wave or by debris or drowned in the molasses the day of the incident. The other half died from injuries and infections in the following weeks. A long ensuing legal battle revealed several possible reasons for the flood. The storage tank had been filled to near capacity on July 13 and the molasses had likely fermented, producing carbon dioxide that raised the pressure inside the cylinder. The courts also faulted the United States Industrial Alcohol Co., which owned the tank, for ignoring numerous signs of the structure's instability over the years, such as frequent leaks.
The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 is both tragic and fantastic. To fully understand this bizarre disaster, we need to examine what makes it unique—its very substance. "The substance itself gives the entire event an unusual, whimsical quality," wrote Stephen Puleo in his book Dark Tide, which recounts the story of McManus and many others who witnessed the calamity.
A wave of molasses does not behave like a wave of water. Molasses is a non-Newtonian fluid, which means that its viscosity depends on the forces applied to it, as measured by shear rate. Consider non-Newtonian fluids such as toothpaste, ketchup and whipped cream. In a stationary bottle, these fluids are thick and goopy and do not shift much if you tilt the container this way and that. When you squeeze or smack the bottle, however, applying stress and increasing the shear rate, the fluids suddenly flow. Because of this physical property, a wave of molasses is even more devastating than a typical tsunami. In 1919 the dense wall of syrup surging from its collapsed tank initially moved fast enough to sweep people up and demolish buildings, only to settle into a more gelatinous state that kept people trapped.
Physics also explains why swimming in molasses is near impossible. One can predict how easily an object or organism will move through a particular medium by calculating the relevant Reynolds number, which in this case takes into account the viscosity and density of the fluid as well as the velocity and size of the object or organism. The higher the Reynolds number, the more likely everything will go along swimmingly.
At least two researchers have directly investigated how people swim in a low Reynolds number environment. Their 2004 study is candidly titled "Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?" Brian Gettelfinger and Edward Cussler, both engineers at the University of Minnesota, asked 16 volunteers—including a few people training for the Olympics—to swim 25 yards (22.5 meters) in a swimming pool filled with plain water and in one filled with water and guar gum, an extract of guar beans used to thicken food. Even though the guar gum doubled the viscosity of water, the volunteers swam equally fast in both pools. The Reynolds number simply did not sink low enough. Gettelfinger and Cussler calculated that in order to challenge human swimmers, they would have needed to increase the viscosity of water 1,000 times.

Modern Diet Is Rotting Our Teeth

A study of the evolution of our teeth over the last 7,500 years shows that humans today have less diverse oral bacteria than historic populations, which scientists believe have contributed to chronic oral diseases in post-industrial lifestyles.

The researchers, from the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), the University of Aberdeen (Dept of Archeology), Scotland, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, England, published their study in Nature Genetics.

The authors say that analyzing the DNA of calcified bacteria on the teeth of humans throughout modern and ancient history "has shed light on the health consequences of the evolving diet and behavior from the Stone Age to modern day".

The scientists explained that there were negative changes in oral bacteria as our diets altered when we moved from being hunter-gatherers to farmers. Further changes were observed when humans started manufacturing food during the Industrial Revolution.

Study leader Professor Alan Cooper, ACAD Director, said, "This is the first record of how our evolution over the last 7500 years has impacted the bacteria we carry with us, and the important health consequences."

The introduction of processed sugar may have completely changed the composition of oral bacteria in humans.

"Oral bacteria in modern man are markedly less diverse than historic populations and this is thought to contribute to chronic oral and other disease in post-industrial lifestyles."

The scientists extracted DNA from calcified dental plaque (tartar) from 34 prehistoric human skeletons from northern Europe. They examined the changes in the nature of oral bacteria that were first present in prehistoric hunter-gatherers, through to the Bronze Age when farming became established, then to Medieval times and finally to the Industrial Revolution and later.

Dr Christina Adler, lead author, who was a PhD student at the University of Adelaide during the study, said "Genetic analysis of plaque can create a powerful new record of dietary impacts, health changes and oral pathogen genomic evolution, deep into the past." Dr. Adler now works at the University of Sydney.

The modern mouth exists in a permanent disease state

Professor Cooper said:

"The composition of oral bacteria changed markedly with the introduction of farming, and again around 150 years ago. With the introduction of processed sugar and flour in the Industrial Revolution, we can see a dramatically decreased diversity in our oral bacteria, allowing domination by caries-causing strains. The modern mouth basically exists in a permanent disease state."

Professor Cooper has been working with Professor Keith Dobney from the University of Aberdeen on this for the last 17 years. Professor Dobney said "I had shown tartar deposits commonly found on ancient teeth were dense masses of solid calcified bacteria and food, but couldn't identify the species of bacteria. Ancient DNA was the obvious answer."

Scientists examined tartar deposits found on ancient teeth in their study. (Photo: Alan Cooper/University of Adelaide)

Prof. Dobney explained that this study provides a completely new window on how human populations lived and died in the past. If we know the real genetic history of diseases humans still suffer from today, scientists might better understand them, and even treat them more effectively. "Being able to track them through time has huge implications for understanding the origins and history of human health - making the archaeological record extremely relevant and important to modern-day medics and geneticists," Dobney added.

In an Abstract in Nature Genetics, the authors wrote that "modern oral microbiotic ecosystems are markedly less diverse than historic populations, which might be contributing to chronic oral (and other) disease in postindustrial lifestyles."

It was not until 2007 that the team could control background levels of bacterial contamination properly. This became possible when ACAD's super-clean labs and stringent decontamination and authentications protocols became available.

The scientists are now expanding their studies geographically and chronologically, and including other species, such as Neanderthals.

There is some evidence that beeswax was used 6,500 ago in dentistry, scientists from Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Italy, explained in the open access journal PLoS ONE on 19th September, 2012.

Raksha Bandhan in History

Raksha Bandhan in History

The traditional Hindu festival 'Raksha Bandhan' (knot of protection) was came into origin about 6000 years back when Aryans created first civilization - The Indus Valley Civilization. With many languages and cultures, the traditional method to Rakhi festival celebration differs from place to place across India. Following are some historical evidences of Raksha Bandhan celebration from the Indian history.

Rani Karnawati and Emperor Humayun
The story of Rani Karnavati and Emperor Humayun is the most significant evidence in the history. During the medieval era, Rajputs were fighting Muslim invasions. Rakhi at that time meant a spiritual binding and protection of sisters was foremost. When Rani Karnawati the widowed queen of the king of Chittor realised that she could in no way defend the invasion of the Sultan of Gujarat, Bahadur Shah, she sent a rakhi to Emperor Humayun. The Emperor touched by the gesture started off with his troops without wasting any time.

Alexander The Great and King Puru
The oldest reference to the festival of rakhi goes back to 300 B.C. at the time when Alexander invaded India. It is said that the great conqueror, King Alexander of Macedonia was shaken by the fury of the Indian king Puru in his first attempt. Upset by this, Alexander's wife, who had heard of the Rakhi festival, approached King Puru. King Puru accepted her as his sister and when the opportunity came during the war, he refrained from Alexander.

Lord Krishna and Draupathi
In order to protect the good people, Lord Krishna killed the evil King Shishupal. Krishna was hurt during the war and left with bleeding finger. Seeing this, Draupathi had torn a strip of cloth from her sari and tied around his wrist to stop the bleeding. Lord Krishna, realizing her affections and concern about him, declared himself bounded by her sisterly love. He promised her to repay this debt whenever she need in future. Many years later, when the pandavas lost Draupathi in the game of dice and Kauravas were removing her saari, Krishna helped her divinely elongating the saari so that they could not remove it.

King Bali and Goddess Lakshmi
The demon king Mahabali was a great devotee of lord Vishnu. Because of his immense devotion, Vishnu has taken the task of protecting bali's Kingdom leaving his normal place in Vikundam. Goddess lakshmi - the wife of lord Vishnu - has became sad because of this as she wanted lord Vishnu along with her. So she went to Bali and discussed as a Brahmin woman and taken refuge in his palace. On Shravana purnima, she tied Rakhi on King Bali's wrist. Goddess Lakshmi revealed who she is and why she is there. The king was touched by Her and Lord Vishnu's good will and affection towards him and his family, Bali requested Lord Vishnu to accompany her to vaikuntam. Due to this festival is also called Baleva as Bali Raja's devotion to the Lord vishnu. It is said that since that day it has become a tradition to invite sisters on sravan pournima to tie sacred thread of Rakhi or Raksha bandan.

How Long until We Have the Superhuman Exoskeletons from Elysium?

In the world of 2154 the divide between rich and poor has been actualized in space—literally. In the ultimate gated community the wealthy and powerful shelter on a ring-world space station dubbed Elysium, enjoying the best in health care, among other perks, as everyone else suffers below on the overpopulated and environmentally trashed Earth. Protecting that privilege requires sometimes superhuman abilities—hence the use of special exoskeleton strength suits that enhance fight or flight.
Such is the world of Elysium in the new film by Neill Blomkamp, whose last sci-fi jaunt, District 9, featured aliens stranded and sequestered in South Africa. For this film opening on August 9, the director dreamed up a lush life built in space against the challenges of gravity for construction and permanent habitation as well as the exoskeletons, although there is little indication of how such strength suits might work.
Given that crude exoskeletons as well as thought-controlled drones and prosthetic limbs already exist, Scientific American asked neuroscientist and roboticist Charles Higgins of the University of Arizona whether the kind of machine-enhanced human abilities in Elysium are likely anytime soon.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
How close to reality are brain-connected exoskeletons?
The exoskeletons we have today are rather primitive. Raytheon's amplifies the muscle movements of a person and allows that person to lift 500 pounds of weight as if it felt like 10 pounds. Yet, it doesn't tie into the brain. The Raytheon exoskeleton is very slow. It allows you to lift a very heavy weight but it's not faster than a human. You move your arm and then it responds to that movement. That's really going to slow it down.
There are exoskeletons designed to help the paralyzed walk but they don't interface with the brain or spinal cord. There's a huge amount of research in this area of neuroprosthetics. You will see that in the field in hospitals in the next 20 or 30 years. It's an advance over the wheelchair but it's nowhere near the technology in the movie. That is going to give someone who is not able to walk the ability to walk, not the ability to leap over 15-foot walls.
Matt Damon's character has something screwed into the back of his head and, my bet is, something screwed into the spinal cord as well. Motor control is actually in the spinal cord. If you have that kind of interface to the brain and spinal cord you could get superhuman reflexes. The technology to do that doesn't really exist today. It's not even up to the Six Million Dollar Man level.
What else might such exoskeletons allow us to do?
They might actually affect the aged population a lot. My parents are in their 80s and can't get around as well. I can imagine someone like my mom, who occasionally uses a walker, wearing one to get around with the tiniest amount of muscle power. If you wear an exoskeleton, maybe you can lift 100 pounds—more than you could when you were 20. It's a huge difference in mobility and independence. It might even work around something like Parkinson's disease. You can train the exoskeleton to ignore the tremors.