News Cut: December 7, 2007 Archive

How we learn from our mistakes

Posted at 7:30 AM on December 7, 2007 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

"You have to learn from your mistakes," I was often told when growing up. And, as it turned out, I am now a very smart person.

But some people can't, according to a study out today in the journal Science ($ and completely ridiculous registration process.)

A translation on a Time Magazine science blog:

In a small study, the researchers scanned the brains of 26 men as they each performed a simple task: choosing one symbol from a pair of symbols. After each selection, the participant was presented with a smiley face or sad face, depending on the symbol he had chosen. All men were equally good at learning to pick the symbols that won them a smiley face, but some men were worse than others at avoiding the ones that resulted in sad faces. Those men, it turns out, had a particular gene variant, or allele, that reduces the density of receptors for dopamine — a neurotransmitter that plays a key role in motivation, pleasure and addiction — in certain areas of the brain. Brain scans also showed significantly less activity in those areas in response to the sad-faced negative feedback, in the men who had the allele. When it occurred, however, that brain activity was linked to activity in other parts of the brain that forms memories.

What are the future consequences -- socially speaking -- of learning that our actions and behaviors are not a matter of will, but a matter of genetics?

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Progress at the speed of science

Posted at 11:24 AM on December 7, 2007 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, made a fascinating observation to Kerri Miller on MPR's Midmorning today during a discussion about stem cell research (Listen to his comments - RealAudio):

Dr. James Thomson, the University of Wisconsin researcher, started the stem cell debate in 1998 when he was able to isolate embryonic stem cells by destroying the embryo. Not quite 10 years later, he appears to have ended the debate by "plucking" the stem cells without destroying the embryo.

We are, it seems, expanding our ability to understand ourselves at an astonishing rate; unimaginable progress when you consider that it was only five years ago that scientists completed the mapping of the human genome.

Never mind that scientists -- you know how scientists are -- aren't proclaiming victory yet because the research hasn't been corroborated. It's still a stunning display of progress, especially when you consider that one month -- one month -- after Thomson's discovery, there's new research out showing that using stem cells from the tail of a mouse appears to have cured the mouse of sickle cell anemia.

In a previous post today, I note that researchers have zeroed in on another key element of how we learn from our mistakes, a critical step in mastering an understanding of how we learn at all.

It's not hard to realize why politicians and scientists don't mesh well. Science is always moving forward.

Fast-rewind to 1975, when Gerald Ford signed legislation setting a 27.5 miles per gallon fuel efficiency standard for automobiles (22.5 for light trucks and SUVs, which didn't exist at the time). Thirty-two years later, the U.S. House on Thursday advanced legislation to add 7.5 miles (12.5 miles for the trucks and SUVs) to that, by 2020. It faces a tough go in the Senate.

The automakers, at least the ones in Detroit, are bringing a "can't do" spirit to the effort, judging by an article in the Detroit Free Press today...

Despite those breaks, automakers said the compromise still will require costly investments in new technologies. GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner, an ardent critic of government fuel economy rules, said the deal will "pose a significant technical and economic challenge to the industry."

A 40-percent increase in fuel standards sounds like a lot. It's the equivalent, however, of advancing the technology at the rate of one-third-of-one-mile per gallon every year since Gerald Ford's 1985 target.

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An end to daycare?

Posted at 1:20 PM on December 7, 2007 by Bob Collins (0 Comments)

As MPR's Jessica Mador reported today, the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that a Red Wing daycare center does not qualify for a property tax exemption because the organization failed to meet one of six criteria long used to determine tax exemption status. This case is seen as having major impact on nonprofits in Minnesota.

We've had quite a bit of e-mail on this today, most folks asking about the criteria.

According to the court ruling , the criteria are:

1. Whether the stated purpose of the undertaking is to be helpful to others without immediate expectations of material reward.
2. Whether the entity involved is supported by donations and gifts in whole or in part.
3. Whether the recipients of the "charity" are required to pay for the assistance received in whole or in part.
4. Whether the income received from gift and donations and charges to users produces a profit to the charitable institution.
5. Whether the beneficiaries of the "charity" are restricted or unrestricted, and
6. Whether dividends in the form or substance, or assets upon dissolution are available to private interests.

The daycare, in this case, didn't meet #3. People are required to pay "tuition," so the court ruled that it's not entitled to nonprofit status.

But the devil's in the dissent, according to those who fear the ramifications of the ruling.

"I believe that the question of whether an organization is a charity depends primarily on the nature of the service it provides and only secondarily on the type of funding mechanisms that may be used by a nonprofit organization..." wrote outgoing Justice Sam Hanson.

Hanson said "there is no doubt that the objectives of Rainbow qualify as traditionally charitable," noting also that a "significant percentage of the parents whose children are served at Rainbow are low-income and qualify to receive county assistance. Although Rainbow works with low-income parents to help them obtain public assistance, it also provides service to some children with no or lower fees."

Hanson, it would appear, is calling for common sense over a strict interpretation of six criteria. In the past, the majority of the court acknowledged, the court has not required that all six be met to be considered nonprofit.

Chief Justice Russell Anderson, however, noted that an institution has never been considered a non-profit (in this case, defined as a "purely public charity") without satisfying #3.

But what, exactly, is the goal of declaring something to be nonprofit? Hanson says it's too encourage charitable services, in this case daycare.

While some may see this as a chance for cities and counties to get more tax revenue, others are clearly seeing this decision as the beginning of the end of daycare.

This one's going to the Legislature.

Are you a daycare provider? What's your take?

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The Omaha difference

Posted at 5:30 PM on December 7, 2007 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

(Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

This week's tragic attack in an Omaha mall is playing out in the news cycles across the country, pretty much as one might expect. After pausing for a moment to honor the victims, the gun debate resumed.

"When are they going to understand that easy access to guns - and the violence that accompanies access - isn't limited to inner cities? It's not just drug dealers who are shooting people," says the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial.

"The real outrage of this crime is that it happened in a 'gun free zone' where law-abiding private citizens are disarmed by mall rules and state statute," counters a press release from the Citizens Committee for the Right To Bear Arms, an angle picked up by Fox News. Nebraska, like Minnesota, is a concealed carry state. The mall in Omaha, however, posted signs prohibiting guns.

From Columbine, to Cold Lake, Minn., to Red Lake, to the campus of Virginia Tech, the post-tragedy debates have been changing. It changed with this shooting, too. With a few exceptions, this time the mental health issue is on the back burner.

We dared not speak of it after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold gave us Columbine, for fear that attempting to understand their minds would be synonymous with condoning their actions.

When Jason McLaughlin shot up Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minn., in 2003, there was a hint -- though small -- of an attempt to understand the brain that masterminded it.

Hundreds of people gathered in the past few days to grieve at St. Boniface Church. A priest there, Father Cletus Connors, says he empathizes with the streses of high schoolers like McLaughlin.

"I think at that age of being a ninth grader, a person is growing so much in so many different ways, I can see how things can be disturbed," he says.

As a leader in the community, Father Connors laments that Jason McLaughlin didn't seek help from an adult. But perhaps his church will now have a better understanding of how to intervene with such a young man.

Those were our first steps toward understanding the unimaginable.

By the time Jeff Weise killed nine people -- and then himself -- on the Red Lake Reservation in 2005, the mental health issue was as much a part of the subsequent discussion as the role of guns.

University of Minnesota child psychiatrist Dr. George Realmuto offers another view. He argues some people have a genetic risk of problem behavior. Realmuto says traumatic events including bullying, violence at home or rejection increase the chance that people with certain genetic backgrounds will act out.

The focus on the need for mental health treatment reached its crescendo earlier this year, when Seung-Hui Cho committed the deadliest shooting rampage in American history. In its aftermath, the national dialogue was dominated not by guns, but by the mental health issue.

"We have difficulty recognizing mental illness in the young, often confusing serious behavioral problems with normal, temporary adolescent behavioral changes. Better recognition of mental diseases can act as a deterrent of future massacres by making an honest attempt at therapy and intervening with these vulnerable kids," the Denver Post wrote.

The evolution of the post-shootings dialogue, though, ended on Wednesday. People did see the demons in Robert Hawkins, they did intervene, he did get a diagnosis, and he did get at least some help.

In the end, it didn't matter. And now we're back to square one.

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