n2doc

n2doc's Journal

June 19, 2012

The Humans With Super Human Vision

An unknown number of women may perceive  millions of colors invisible to the rest of us. One British scientist is trying to track them down and understand their extraordinary power of sight.
by Veronique Greenwood

An average human, utterly unremarkable in every way, can  perceive a million different colors. Vermilion, puce, cerulean, periwinkle, chartreuse—we have thousands of words for them, but mere language can never capture our extraordinary range of hues. Our powers of color vision derive from cells in our eyes called cones, three types in all, each triggered by different wavelengths of light. Every moment our eyes are open, those three flavors of cone fire off messages to the brain. The brain then combines the signals to produce the sensation we call color.

Vision is complex, but the calculus of color is strangely simple: Each cone confers the ability to distinguish around a hundred shades, so the total number of combinations is at least 1003, or a million. Take one cone away—go from being what scientists call a trichromat to a dichromat—and the number of possible combinations drops a factor of 100, to 10,000. Almost all other mammals, including dogs and New World monkeys, are dichromats. The richness of the world we see is rivaled only by that of birds and some insects, which also perceive the ultraviolet part of the spectrum.

Researchers suspect, though, that some people see even more. Living among us are people with four cones, who might experience a range of colors invisible to the rest. It’s possible these so-called tetrachromats see a hundred million colors, with each familiar hue fracturing into a hundred more subtle shades for which there are no names, no paint swatches. And because perceiving color is a personal experience, they would have no way of knowing they see far beyond what we consider the limits of human vision.

more

http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-humans-with-super-human-vision

June 19, 2012

Clinic Doctors fear testifying in Georgia

By Andria Simmons and Jim Galloway
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Metro Atlanta physicians who participated in the General Assembly's debate on new abortion restrictions say they warned lawmakers that they were being targeted for reprisals. And they are skittish about returning to the state Capitol next year when the topic is all but certain to come up again.

Two burglaries and two fires at Atlanta-area women's clinics and a burglary at the the main office of the Georgia Obstetrical and Gynecological Society are being investigated by the FBI as possible acts of domestic terrorism or civil rights violations.

Four of the five offices targeted are run by doctors who had voiced concerns — sometimes publicly, sometimes privately — about the so-called fetal pain bill, which shortened to 20 weeks the time frame during which women can have an elective abortion.

"These are despicable acts and if there is some relationship between these acts and the legislation, then it's even more outrageous," said House Speaker David Ralston. "I'm concerned that Georgians might have some fear of coming to the Capitol and voicing their opinions on legislation. Obviously, that troubles me."

more

http://www.ajc.com/news/doctors-fear-testifying-at-1460425.html

June 19, 2012

Economist Paul Krugman on Germany's 'Whips and Scourges'

BY: PAUL SOLMAN

Welcome to "Paul Krugman Week" here on Making Sen$e. We'll be devoting the next five days to excerpts from our extensive interview with him a few weeks ago at his home in Princeton, N.J., plus parts of a public interview at the First Parish Church in Harvard Square, Cambridge with NPR's Tom Ashbrook, the remarkably knowledgeable host of "On Point." We also will excerpt our interview with economist Robin Wells, Krugman's partner in life and textbook writing.

In our first installment, Krugman discusses European austerity, and makes the point that no country that has its own currency is experiencing the problems the eurozone now faces. Below, a rebuttal of sorts from Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Germany's Concern Is Moral Hazard, Not Morality

The principal assertion made by professor Krugman concerning the German response to the euro area crisis is that it is all about "morality and debt is evil". That, however, is a mischaracterization of the underlying reasons for the German unwillingness to immediately sanction large bailouts and focus on harsh austerity measures in the euro area. The real issue is moral hazard, not morality, and is rooted in the design flaws of the common currency, which grants member states (or at least did until the crisis) full sovereignty over issues such as their banking sector and most fiscal policy.

There is no doubt that in the ideal world the best response to a financial crisis is to deploy the "Powell Doctrine" of deploying overwhelming public sector financial force to quickly restore confidence among private investors. Such bailout actions, however, are inevitably politically premised on full ability of the "bailout giver" to dictate the actions of the "bailout recipient." There was no political problem in, for instance, the United States, when Congress passed the TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program), as Congress is fully sovereign and can dictate the actions of U.S. recipients. Similarly with the standard modus operandi of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), which only grants bailouts to governments that sign on to tough economic reform programs beforehand and essentially lose their national sovereignty in process.

more with video

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/06/paul-krugman-on-germanys-whips-and-scourges.html

June 19, 2012