Magnets mask morals

If you think your morals are immutable, think again. It turns out nothing more complicated than a set of magnetic pulses could impair moral judgments.

Researchers at the Massachussets Institute of Technology have identified the so-called moral compass as being a section of the brain known as the right temporo-parietal junction, located just behind the right ear (marked in red in the picture above.) They found this through brain scans which showed increased activity in the area when moral judgments were being made.

The researchers then carried out two sets of tests to see if this could be manipulated, both involving the use of magnetic stimulation to create an electrical current which temporarily disables the relevant part of the brain.

In one test, it was found that a 25 minute sessions of stimulation left volunteers who read a story judging the characters by events rather than by their intentions.

In the other test, the participants were given the current for just half a second. The scenarios in this test included one where a man let his girlfriend cross a bridge he knew to be unsafe. After receiving the magnetic pulse, participants were much more likely to consider the man had acted acceptably.

Another scenario involved a character visiting a chemical plant making coffee for a friend and taking sugar from a container marked “toxic”. After receiving the pulse, participants were more likely to consider the character hadn’t acted irresponsibly as no harm came to her friend.

In both sets of tests it appears the specific difference was that judgments became biased towards assessing outcomes and downplayed the perceived importance of people’s intentions.

The researchers say this is only one part of the puzzle: moral judgments also include factors such as the circumstances and previous behavior of the person being judged.

The next step in the research is to investigate what role luck plays in the way a person is judged by others. One example would be the difference between a drunk driver who kills a pedestrian and one who avoids any incident: though the only difference between the two is luck, most people would probably take a harsher view of the former’s behavior.

Pac-Man on the Moon

From its position in orbit around Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft revealed some interesting images of the icy moon Mimas – “unexpected hot regions” that happen to resemble Pac-Man about to chomp down on a pink dot.

Though the heated dot was expected due to the warm spot around Herschel Crater (which is what makes the moon itself rather remarkably resemble the Death Star), scientists claim to be “completely baffled” by the Pac-Man-shaped heat signature on the left. It could be due to surface texture variations, though that still doesn’t explain the sharp boundaries.

A NASA scientist described the moon as “more bizarre than we thought it was.” Awesome.

[Via NASA]


Job Offer: [GaS] is looking for a few good contributors

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[Geeks Are Sexy] is currently looking for passionate IT people / geeks who are up to the challenge of blogging a few days each week about geekdom, technology and other IT related topics. Here are some reasons you should consider writing for us:

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The candidate must have creativity, strong english writing skills, and some experience in the world of blogging and technology. If you think you are up to the task, then we would love to hear more from you. Be sure to send us examples of your writings + links to sites where you’ve worked before.

What Do Women Want?

Joe Quirk takes a look at the implications of evolutionary biology in the human mating ritual we call “spring break” in the article The Geek’s Guide To Getting Girls. He starts out wondering “what do women want?” I have to sigh a little every time I hear that one.

Women want everything. Just like men. There are some things we want that men don’t, just as there are a few things men want that women don’t. Still, we all want a long happy life, material possessions, someone to love and to enjoy our time with, connections with people whose interests we share, a sense of accomplishment, adventures, good health, admiration from our peers, sexual satisfaction, children who make us proud, and a little ice cream after dinner.

That’s pretty easy to figure out. But that has nothing to do with what men want to know. What they are really asking is, “What do women want from men?” We can all read between the lines when we read such articles. The Geek’s Guide To Getting Girls focuses on what college women on a vacation break in a remote location look for in selecting a sexual partner for a very short-term relationship. Which is pretty much what happens in the animal kingdom, when the females in their prime reproductive years select sexual partners from a number of males competing for their favor. In other words, how to get laid. And here’s a spoiler: the geek can get the girl on spring break.

PS: I sat down and wrote several pages on the difference between mating strategies for spring break vs. strategies for finding a long-term partner, then discarded it. If anyone is interested in the musings of a 51-year-old female geek who’s been married more times than she cares to count, I’d be surprised.

Editor’s note: Miss C’s post today made me thought of an old article we published in 2008. The Geek’s Ultimate Guide to Picking Up Girls takes a humorous (and not too serious) look at strategies male geeks can use to meet women who have similar interests.

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Battlefield Earth Writer Apologizes for “Suckiest Movie Ever”

After receiving (in person!) a Razzie for “Worst Movie of the Decade” for the notoriously awful science fiction film Battlefield Earth, writer J.D. Shapiro wrote this amusing editorial for the New York Post in which he apologized profusely for inflicting such suckiness on the world. They didn’t set out to make a train wreck, he says, though “comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.” Of course, the ultimate culprit was whoever told him that Scientology center was a great place to pick up women.

Though Shapiro does paint himself to be a sympathetic character, since he blames the downturn of the movie on notes from John Travolta & co., which he refused to incorporate himself – after which he was fired. So why didn’t he take his name off of the film, you might ask? Money, obviously, which is a fair enough reason.

In case you were wondering, this brings the total number of Razzies awarded to Battlefield Earth over the years to nine. The other big winner this year was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, picking up Worst Picture of the Year, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay.

As for Mr. Shapiro, I contend that any sins should be absolved due to the fact that he also wrote Robin Hood: Men in Tights.