The CDC on Zombie Preparedness

Poster from the CDC.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been thinking about the potential for a zombie apocalypse. You can find a page on Zombie Preparedness on their website, as well as a graphic novel (9Mb pdf).

If you are generally well equipped to deal with a zombie apocalypse you will be prepared for a hurricane, pandemic, earthquake, or terrorist attack.

— Ali Khan (2011) (Head of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention): Quoted in Zombie Preparedness on the CDC website.

NOTE: The CDC recommends you quarantine zombies rather than kill them; Kyle Munkittrick, of the Pop Bioethics blog disagrees.

Soviet Space Progaganda

"Soviet means excellent." Soviet progaganda poster via How to be a Retronaut.

An excellent set of Soviet propaganda posters from How to be a Retronaut. The collection contains a fascinating blend of of triumphalism sprinkled with some attempts at modesty.

"Glory to the conquerors of the universe."

The posters make wonderful subjects for the study of propaganda and the space race.

My favorite:

"Socialism is our launching pad."

Scale of the Universe: 62 Orders of Magnitude (1062)

Scale of the Universe 2, by Cary and Michael Huang. WARNING: look out for ads on the site.

In a modern variant on the Powers of Ten video, Cary and Michael Huang have created an excellent flash game that spans the scale of the universe, from the smallest, only hypothesized particles, through atomic, human, planetary, and galactic scales (to name a but a few), to the size of the universe itself. It goes further than the Cell Size and Scale flash app.

The link is here, but look out for an advertisement that takes up the game window, which will eventually let you through (or you can click the “Skip Ad” link on the bottom right of the ad).

Will the New Arab Democracies Survive?

The key countries at the heart of the Arab Spring: Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. Image adapted from Wikimedia Commons User:Danalm000.

What are the chances that the revolutions of the Arab Spring succeed at creating democracies? According to a regression model created Jay Ulfelder: maybe.

[T]he probability that each of those new democracies would make it to their sixth birthday…:

  • Tunisia: 82%
  • Egypt: 48%
  • Libya: 89%

Ulfelder’s blog post is worth the read. It’s an excellent (if somewhat technical) example of how to do (and write up) some quick research, and how the ability to blog is changing the way scientists share ideas, and get feedback (check out the comments section).

Different Types of Values

There are some things in this world that we are willing to trade, things that we can put a dollar value on, but there are other things — call them sacred things — values and beliefs that just don’t register on any monetary scale. New research (summarized by Keim, 2012) emphasizes this intuitive understanding, by showing that different part of the brain are used to evaluate these two different types of things.

[W]hen people didn’t sell out their principles, it wasn’t because the price wasn’t right. It just seemed wrong. “There’s one bucket of things that are utilitarian, and another bucket of categorical things,” [neuroscientist Greg Berns] said. “If it’s a sacred value to you, then you can’t even conceive of it in a cost-benefit framework.”

— Keim, 2012: Profit vs. Principle: The Neurobiology of Integrity in Wired (via The Dish).

Some of the biggest implications of this work has to do with economics. The traditional, rational view has been that people evaluate everything by comparing the costs versus the benefits. When economists take that rational view of human behavior into other fields, there is a strong sense of overreach (see Freakonomics).

The growing research into behavioral economics, on the other hand, is making a spirited effort grapple with the irrationality of human behavior, much of which probably stems from these two different value systems (sacred vs. cost/benefit). While it’s not exactly the same thing, Dan Ariely‘s books are a good, popular compilation of observations and anecdotes that highlight how people’s irrational behavior extends even into the marketplace.

The Last 100 Years: World History as Seen from the U.S.

YouTube user derDon1234 has compiled an interesting video montage of historical events over the last 100 years. derDon1234 makes some interesting choices about what to show — condensed into 10 minutes — but it’s a valuable perspective, with some fascinating and poignant video. It’s worth a look.