Dr. X's Free Associations

Rounding Up Chicago's Last Rattlesnakes

Here's an interesting story about efforts to capture, breed and reintroduce Chicago's last rattlesnakes.  These snakes are small, 24-30 inches full grown, and very docile.  Although their venomous bite is serious, it is not life threatening to humans.  And, they don't always release venom with their bite.  That depends on whether or not they think you're edible prey.

We still had these little guys in my old neighborhood, back 20 years ago.  For Chicago readers, that was up by the old Glenview Naval Air Station.  The snakes used to get killed by cars while crossing busy Willow Road traveling between the landfill on the north side to the air station on the south side of the street.  The snake population was finished off by dense residential and commercial development that replaced the air station.

Read more: Snake Roundup.

Swine Flu Alert: Use The Cough Pocket

Pediatrician Mom writes:

Most of us were taught in our younger years to "cover your sneeze," usually with the hand. The hand method is polite, but not the best way to prevent the spread of germs! Using your hand to 'catch' a cough ensures that whatever was just coughed up will then be sitting in your palm, ready to contact other items and people.

An even more polite method is to cover one's sneeze or cough with the inside of one's elbow [the cough pocket], minimizing the spread of germs...

Ideology and The Craigslist Killer

I had no intention of taking a cheap political shot by mentioning that Philip Markoff, AKA the Craigslist Killer, was a Young Republican.  I had expected a few twisted liberal bloggers to make something of Markoff's political affiliation, but I hadn't expected conservatives to link liberalism, directly or indirectly, with murder(s) committed by a Young Republican:

SOCIOPATHY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: How the Craigslist Killer, the Taliban, and Today's Left are Psychologically and Ideologically Connected

Now, it's time to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Brain Imaging and Statistical Voodoo

Newsweek reports on two recent articles that slam fMRI studies.

Now a new study, published last night online for the May issue of Nature Neuroscience, offers an equally devastating critique. Nikolaus Kriegeskorte, Chris Baker and colleagues, of the National Institute of Mental Health, analyzed all the fMRI studies published last year in five top journals (Nature, Science, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron and Journal of Neuroscience). Of the 134 fMRI papers, 42 percent (57 papers) committed a statistical sin at least once: they were guilty of what the NIMH scientists call “double dipping.”

Waiting Room Reading

My dashboard oil light is doing some unsettling things, so I left my car with the mechanic a few minutes ago.  It's probably just a light switch glitch (I think, wishfully).  Thought I'd post up a few links while I await the verdict at a the nearby cafe.

The Times has an update on those Indonesian hobbits--the tiny hominids that don't seem to fit anywhere in our accounts of human evolution.  "The possibilities get curiouser and curiouser, said William L. Jungers of Stony Brook University, making hobbits 'the black swan of paleontology — totally unpredicted and inexplicable.'”

Ars psychiatrica writes about Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet (my brush with Bellow--a Bellow ex-wife was once a neighbor of mine).  If you aren't reading Neil Scheurich, you don't know what you're missing.  His writing alone is worth a visit.  I don't often find myself feeling envious, but it's difficult to read Scheurich's posts without wishing I had half the talent he has (sorry, I don't mean to make you blush, Neil).  It is a crime, as far as I'm concerned, that blogs like ars psychiatrica attract a relative handful readers while knuckle-typing, mouth-breathers draw millions of hits per month.

Speaking of blogs you should be reading, git on over to Jung at Heart where Cheryl Fuller continues her commentary on the HBO series In Treatment.  I don't watch the show, but I still enjoy Cheryl's insights.  For more on In Treatment, check out Dinah's posts at Shrink Rap.

Laughing at you or with you?  Political ideology affects satire meters:

This study investigated biased message processing of political satire in The Colbert Report and the influence of political ideology on perceptions of Stephen Colbert. Results indicate that political ideology influences biased processing of ambiguous political messages and source in late-night comedy. Using data from an experiment (N = 332), we found that individual-level political ideology significantly predicted perceptions of Colbert's political ideology. Additionally, there was no significant difference between the groups in thinking Colbert was funny, but conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements.

EZ serves up some "Meaty Morsels" from the Blagojevich biography, Pay to Play.  Among them:

Early on, Marge Mell, his late mother-in-law, had concerns about Blagojevich's "trustworthiness." In 2003, during Blagojevich's first year as governor, Secretary of State Jesse White told him, "I've known [former Gov. George Ryan] for 30 years. He never lied to me once. You've lied to me 15 times in six months." 

And, White's benchmark for honesty, George Ryan, is in prison for corruption. 

Update:

It was just a bad switch on the oil light.  Phew!

Vintage Photos: Ronald Reagan Cooks a Roast

Commercial for G.E. appliances (1958).  Left-click photo to enlarge.

Attentional Blinks Disrupt the Stream Of Consciousness

Jeremy Dean at PsyBlog:

What the attentional blink demonstrates is the illusory component of our everyday experience of consciousness. We experience the world as one long continuous stream of thoughts, feelings and events, each neatly seguing into the next. But the existence of the attentional blink points to a somewhat different story.

Our brains are actually paying attention to one event or thing which swallows up our attention, blocking out other inputs for short periods, then it releases and fixates on something else. In this sense consciousness is less of a smooth stream and more of a bumpy ride.

Tom Roeser Has Been Giving Me The Creeps Lately

Roeser is a smart, knowledgeable conservative columnist, but, sadly, his work has taken a very dark turn in recent years.  Creepy racial references pepper commentary that is dominated by an almost shocking level of vicious, unrelenting contempt for his opponents.  But, sometimes Roeser's fury is so overwrought that, instead of shocking me, he just cracks me up.

From Roeser's most recent rant directed at Chicago Tribune publisher Sam Zell and the Trib editorial board:

You’d think the “Tribune” would try…out of desperation, anyhow…to be something different. But no: its liberal board of directors, its know nothing little Lucifer motorcyclist owner [Zell], its viscerally left-leaning editorial board are rooted in liberal cliché-dom.

Now, I was taught that Lucifer is anything but a know-nothing.  A bumbling, inept Satan wouldn't pose much of a threat to the salvation of humankind.  If the Prince of Darkness owned a news empire, I'm quite sure it would be as big and as successful as anything owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Health Care Costs: 5% Use 50%

Dr. Rob offers a worthwhile 3-part post on health care costs.  He argues that cost containment comes down to creating incentives for primary care physicians to manage chronic illnesses more cost effectively.

The reason I focused on these diseases [diabetes, heart disease & AIDS] is that they all represent areas where good care is clearly beneficial.  I won’t hit you with a bunch of statistics (they are easily found), but the bottom line is this:

• Well controlled diabetics have far fewer complications and hospitalizations than poorly controlled ones.
• A very large percentage of heart disease is preventable through relatively small interventions (Aspirin therapy, blood pressure control, cholesterol control).
• Appropriate treatment, screening, and prevention of HIV infection is cost-effective. (11, 12, 13)

As I say to my patients, it’s bad to wait until the oil light comes on in your car before you check your oil.  A little intervention early can help a lot...

[T]he PCP is clearly best suited to implement preventive care and to manage patients with multiple chronic diseases.  The PCP is a generalist, and has no financial motivation to have patients hospitalized (like hospitals do) or do procedures (like specialists do).  Primary care is practiced in the outpatient setting, which is the least expensive place to do care.

But our system that rewards volume over quality makes it nearly impossible for most PCP’s to give the kind of care that chronically ill people need.  Many of them would simply go out of business if they tried.

Vintage Photos: ca. 1947

Left-click photo to enlarge.