The “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” advice is so trite that we’re tempted to scream whenever we hear it mentioned. However, we will admit (yes, even snarky, jaded bloggers like ourselves) that empathy is a valuable character trait (and not just if you’re minoring in global poverty).

So you wanna know something weird? Some people may actually be more empathetic based on their genes. Researchers at Berkeley recently discovered that certain people with “a particular variation of the oxytocin receptor gene” nicknamed the “G allele” were more empathetic and also less vulnerable to stress. In fact, the most empathetic participants had two copies of the G allele (you might call them “double G’s”).

Don’t worry if you’re not a double G, though. As one of the researchers said, “There are plenty of people in the AA or AG gene pool who are empathetic, caring individuals.” An AA allele does not a puppy murderer make.

Besides, there are other incentives to be empathetic: “We should reach out to people … because research shows it’s better for everyone to be socially connected,” the researcher declared.

So if you’re not in it because of the whole “better for humanity” deal, please base your decision on research findings. Your fellow human beings would greatly appreciate it.

Image source: kalandrakas under Creative Commons
Some of us may be more empathetic, study says [NewsCenter]

The “let’s turn science-y stuff into a form of entertainment that people will actually want to watch in their free time” approach has been successful in the past with shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy, the Magic School Bus and Carl Sagan’s series “The Cosmos.”

So it’s no surprise that the latest video from the campus musical group the Sounds of Science has become an instant YouTube hit. Since their last video, “The Nano Song,” they’ve really stepped it up on special effects, lyrics and editing. Lawrence Lab even blows up in the video.

Only one problem: “The Safety Song” isn’t actually that safe: a radioactive fluid is cleaned up with a paper towel (no puppet evacuation, tisk tisk) and safety glasses are worn instead of safety goggles. So LBL’s asking for a few revisions before they use it as part of their safety demo.

The Safety Song [YouTube]
Students Turn Sounds of Science Into YouTube Hit [Daily Cal]

And though registration is not required (admission is free), there is a RSVP form.

Below, the schedule of events according to the Wonderfest site:

10:00 am — Do Robots Make Better Astronauts?

* Chris McKay, Planetary Scientist, NASA-Ames Research Center
* Kanna Rajan, Principal Researcher for Autonomy, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

11:30 am — 4:00 pm — Bay Area Science Expo (Exhibitors Register)

* Art, books, crafts, & music for science lovers

Sudden Special Event: The Science of Magic 11:30 am

* Neuroscientist & magician Luigi Anzivino fools us with his hands and his head.

1:00 pm — Does Darwin Illuminate Emotion & Spirituality?

* Paul Ekman, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, UC San Francisco
* Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley

2:45 pm — Which Stars Support Intelligent Life?

* Ken Croswell, astronomer and author of The Lives of Stars and Magnificent Universe

3:15 pm — Science Laughs

* The comedy of Norm Goldblat & Brian Malow

4:00 pm — Can We Create Life?

* Carlos Bustamante, Professor of Physics and of Molecular & Cell Biology, UC Berkeley
* John Kuriyan, Professor of Molecular & Cell Biology and of Chemistry, UC Berkeley

Image Source: riumplus under Creative Commons
Wonderfest [Site]

Unlike the above video, the best theory for what causes this type of supernova requires two white dwarfs instead of one.

In a nutshell, UC Berkeley astronomers happened upon some data that classified a supernova (later creatively named SN2002bj) discovered in 2002 as Type II, which turns out to be pretty common, and realized the brightness and duration were closer to a Type Ia. Except the whole event was about 10 percent the duration and brightness of a typical Ia.

Berkeley astronomer and professor Alex Filippenko—who, by the way, discovered SN2002bj about 3.5 hours after the original discoverers—says it’s “qualitatively different from the complete disruption of a white dwarf, known as a Type Ia supernova, or the collapse of an iron core and rebound of the surrounding material, so-called ‘core-collapse supernovae.’”

And while the data is stranger than usual, the Berkeley astronomers found a paper published before the reclassification that sheds brilliant, piercingly radiative light onto what infernal mechanism could possibly explain SN2002bj’s odd solar flare for the dramatic.

And Filippenko’s thoughts on discovering new types of supernova? “It whets my appetite for what else we might find out there with these large, wide-sky surveys … but these new surveys will find thousands or hundreds of thousands of supernovae.”

supernova explosion [harami111]
Rapid supernova could be new class of exploding star [NewsCenter]
Supernova fits into a new class [Chron]

A weird foursome: could it be that teenagers prone to depression sleep less and use the internet more, resulting in worse depression and tossing them into a real nasty sleep minimizing, internet and depression maximizing situation? Of course we, sound and sturdy early twenty-somethings that we are, are far beyond silly adolescent things like all-nighters, depression and the internet. But hey, how ’bout our soft minded kid brothers and sisters? Yet another psych study gets underway:

Thirteen- to 19-year-olds are being recruited by UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Psychological Disorders Laboratory, which, in conjunction with Kaiser Permanente, Oregon, will study their sleep and psychological disorders. A connection between a good night’s rest and mental soundness has been established in adults, but this has yet to be confirmed in adolescents. Of course, we’d be slightly surprised if the reverse turned out to be.

In 1988, a survey of 10th and 12th graders revealed that about 45 percent of them regularly went to bed after midnight on school nights. The UC Berkeley study will provide modern numbers on this account, the expectation being that the internet has stretched kids’ waking hours more than a little. All remains to be seen …

Image Source: angeluzzo under Creative Commons.
Study to explore if more sleep will help teens shake off depression [News Center]

It seems like the Lawrence Berkeley Lab is always getting in the news for something or other. Now, it’s for getting a pretty sweet cut out of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act pot—$7 million, to be vaguely precise. And this time the funding is for geothermal energy research.

“Now wait a minute, Clog,” you suspiciously ask.

“Isn’t geothermal energy what kept the human race alive in a machine-run world in the Matrix series? Is this just the beginning to the inevitable end of humanity as we know it?”

Well, no, actually virtual reality worlds and Keanu Reeves have little to do with it.

Basically, there are geothermal technologies out there already. And they kind of suck. The LBL has four programs looking into methods that can get energy where the current technologies are woefully impotent.

The four programs are known as: Fluid Imaging, Estimating Fracture Surface Area, CO2 As Fluid and THMC Modeling. Respectively, they are probably way more complicated than a layman’s explanation.

Fun facts about geothermal energy, taken from the LBL site:
*Total electricity used by the U.S. that is generated by geothermal energy is less than 1 percent.
*Eight percent of renewable energy is made geothermally.
*Enhanced geothermal technologies could go up 40 times, up to about 10 percent of total U.S. energy consumption.

Image Source: VancityAllie under Creative Commons
Berkeley Lab Receives $7 Million for Enhanced Geothermal Energy Technologies [LBL]

2012 (the movie but also the year) is rapidly approaching, and with it comes the first of the doomsday predictions: It’s possible that one-third of all named dinosaur species never existed. Okay, so it’s a retroactive prophecy (and also a “wild guess”), but still kinda spooky.

UC Berkeley paleontologists, with all their badass technology and intelligence, recently published a paper that retroactively “wiped out two species of dome-headed dinosaur.”

Before you get excited, there were no time-travel paradoxes involved. Essentially this was just correcting a past mistake. Paleontologists now believe that several of the fossils they thought were new species of dinosaurs were actually different stages of development of the same dinosaur. According to the article,

The confusion is traced to their bizarre head ornaments, ranging from shields and domes to horns and spikes, which changed dramatically with age and sexual maturity, making the heads of youngsters look very different from those of adults.

An easy mistake, in our book. After all, it’s the same with humans, really. It’s hard to predict that an adolescent hipster with a mohawk and a spike collar will evolve into a middle-aged man with a briefcase and a combover. We could forgive an outside observer for assuming that they were entirely different species.

Image source: hoyasmeg under Creative Commons
New analyses of dinosaur growth may wipe out one-third of species [UC Berkeley News]

Research universities may sound boring, but you never know exactly what those crazy guys will be up to. Perhaps they will be teaching Argentinian ants to hate each other, for example.

That’s right, you heard correctly. Researchers from UC Berkeley have just figured out that certain chemical cues will cause normally friendly ants to turn on each other. They isolated the chemicals that promote fighting behavior and the ants attacked. “‘The enemy chemicals generated significantly greater instances of flared mandibles, biting and other attacking behavior than did the control chemicals,’” according to the co-lead author of the study.

In other words, as far as ants are concerned, it’s “gimme the chemicals and it is SO on.”

These ants are apparently a big problem in our state, especially since they band together to form some kind of “supercolony” and attack all the other ants. But now we’ve got a way to make them attack each other, thus enabling us to continue with our wider plan for the state (drowning it in deficits, presumably).

There’s probably some life lesson to be learned from these ants. Something about working together and putting up a common front against adversity. But we’re too excited about ant battles to care. 20 bucks on the one with the big antennae. He’s loaded with chemicals and raring to flare some mandibles!

When ants attack: Researchers recreate chemicals that trigger aggression in Argentine ants [UC Berkeley News]
Image source: NeilsPhotography under Creative Commons

You see all those people above, leaning seemingly inexplicably to their left? You know why they’re leaning? It’s because they’re stoked. Super, super stoked. You know why they’re stoked? Because they just signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding … and Friendship … for Everyone!

OK, maybe we made those last bits up, but they did sign on to a very special partnership with the Building Trades Council of Alameda County that will allow four lucky electrical apprentices to try their hands at their craft in the high stakes electrical world of a national laboratory.

And all under the glaring lights of scrutiny focused unflinchingly upon them by reality television cameras. Do they have what it takes? ONLY TIME WILL TELL. OK, we made that up too. But seriously, it sounds like a pretty cool program. Way to streamline resources, Berkeley Lab and Alameda County!

Image Source: Roy Kaltschmidt, LBL site
Berkeley Lab Launches Apprenticeship Program for Electrical Resources [LBL]

Earlier today, our old (like, old as in silver fox old, of course) buddy Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy and hero of the universe, visited the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to catch up with his former colleagues.

He talked to them about all sorts of fun things, like the future of energy research, $151 million in funding for awesome ambitious projects and Wayne Gretzky. True story–just watch the webcast and check out the PowerPoint presentation he made … all by himself. D’awww.

Oh, Steven. You haven’t changed a bit.

Lawrence Berkeley Lab [Site], via Berkeleyside
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