Science and Technology micro-summaries for June 15, 2019

The science of anger; T-Rhex: a bioinspired robot that climbs sloped surfaces; Retraction of a public health paper on austerity in Spain; Potential GPS outage cost estimated at $1 billion per day; and self-censorship on college campuses...

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Straight from my RSS feed:

Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

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1. Why we get mad -- and why it's healthy - In this TED talk, Ryan Martin talks about the things that cause anger, and ways to use it productively. Some things that trigger anger include unfair and unpleasant situations that could have been avoided, things that interfere with our goals, things that are outside of our own control, and individual factors like urgency, hunger, and fatigue. In particular, Martin notes that "catastrophizing" (making the worst of things) and mis-attribution of cause are associated with chronic anger. Martin points out that anger conveys an evolutionary advantage because it triggers our sense of unfairness, but also notes that the historical methods for responding to anger (fighting) are no longer appropriate. Instead, he suggests that it's important to respond to injustice, but that anger needs to be channeled into productive paths like activism or entrepreneurship.


2. T-RHex Is a Hexapod Robot With Microspines on Its Feet - T-RHex (pronounced T-Rex, like the dinosaur) is a biologically inspired robot that has 6 whegs (wheel-legs), a tail, and tiny toes, known as microspines (made from fish hooks). It walks predominantly on its heels, but the microspines enable it to climb slopes and hang from them. In order to engage the microspine, it has to run the wheg in reverse for a short distance. The robot can climb surfaces that are inclined at an angle of up to 55 degrees. The article contains a written description of the robot, an embedded youtube video, and the transcript from an e-mail interview with Catherine Pavlov, a member of team ScienceParrot, who created the robot.
   
   

   Here is the video:
   

Public health journal retracts paper on austerity for “inaccurate and misleading results” - The American Journal of Public Health retracted a 2018 paper on austerity because it linked austerity in Spain to a massive spike in premature deaths from the years 2011 through 2015, but the methods used were "inaccurate and misleading". A subsequent paper on the topic found that Spain's overall mortality declined during the period from 2001 through 2016 including a slight uptick with no single explanation during the austerity years.

Study finds that a GPS outage would cost $1 billion per day - North Carolina based RTI International published a study finding that a GPS disruption would impact the global economy by about $1 billion per day in lost productivity. The study covered the period from 1984 through 2017 and found that GPS has added about $1.4 trillion to the economy, with 90% of those gains coming after 2010.

Self-Censorship on Campus Is Bad for Science - The Atlantic - @jasonbu posts through d-link with an article from The Atlantic. The article, by biologist Luana Maroja offers a number of examples to suggest that ideological objections from students to well established scientific facts are gaining traction on campus, and that professors sometimes respond to this resistance by altering the contents of their lessons. The article goes on to argue that avoiding the controversial topics does a disservice to students, who are thereby denied "opportunities for learning and for intellectual empowerment". @jasonbu adds the argument that people who work in science communication roles need to focus more on encouraging open discussions so that people who learn from them will "think more and follow less". (@jasonbu will receive 5% of the rewards from this post.)

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In order to help make Steem the go to place for timely information on diverse topics, I invite you to discuss any of these links in the comments and/or your own response post.

For example, feel free to comment on any or all of these discussion topics:

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1. If anger is triggered by perceived unfair outcomes that are beyond our control and interfere with our goals, and if "catastrophizing" is associated with chronic anger, do you think that media trends towards sensationalism and "fake news" might effect the levels of anger in society?
   
   
2. What practical uses do you think there are for a robot like T-Rhex that is able to climb and hang from slopes?
   
   
3. How would a sustained GPS outage impact your lifestyle and livelihood?
   
   
4. What are your thoughts on the Atlantic's suggestion that professors sometimes dodge confrontations with student-ideologues by self-censoring their own lesson plans?
   
   

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About this series

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