Distracting Miss Daisy

British born Duke psychologist John Staddon has an essay in the July/August Atlantic Monthly which makes the argument that the American love for traffic signs of all shapes, colors and sizes is ineffective at best and downright counterproductive in many cases. Ditto for many speed limits.

Staddon, the James B Duke Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and professor of Biology and Neurobiology, is not merely an anarchist. He has made his career out of studying adaptive behavior -- how animals and humans change what they've been doing in response to a new stimulus. So, between that and learning to drive on the wrong side -- and in North Carolina no less -- he's got some bona fides on the topic. "Collectively, the forests of signs along American roadways, and the multitude of rules to look out for, are quite deadly," he says.

What, Staddon asks reasonably, is the point of all these ridiculous signs that aren't even in the roadway, where the driver's eyes really should be focused? He writes:

Consider the stop sign. It seems innocuous enough; we do need to stop from time to time. But think about how the signs are actually set up and used. For one thing, there’s the placement of the signs—off to the side of the road, often amid trees, parked cars, and other road signs; rarely right in front of the driver, where he or she should be looking.

Then there’s the sheer number of them. They sit at almost every intersection in most American neighborhoods. In some, every intersection seems to have a four-way stop. Stop signs are costly to drivers and bad for the environment: stop/start driving uses more gas, and vehicles pollute most when starting up from rest. More to the point, however, the overabundance of stop signs teaches drivers to be less observant of cross traffic and to exercise less judgment when driving—instead, they look for signs and drive according to what the signs tell them to do.

American drivers have become so reliant on being told what to do at every curve and intersection that they seem to lose the ability to make their own decisions, he argues.

At the very least, he says, let's consider more roundabouts instead of four-way stops, and markings in the pavement, not on a stick off to the side.

It's fascinating, provocative stuff. ...Does the Secretary of Transportation need to be American by birth?!

SEE ALSO - July 8, 2008 - Signs blamed for highway crash http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Bus-Wreck-NTSB.html

Lemur Health & Conservation

I'd like you to meet Meredith Barrett. She's a grad student in Duke's program in ecology with Lemur Center Director Anne Yoder and she's doing some very interesting work on the health of animals that are on the fringes of human encroachment.

You won't be able to meet Meredith in person -- at least not until September -- because she's on the other side of the world right now, doing field work in Madagascar. Her work involves gently trapping and darting lemurs on the forest edge and quickly taking several measures of their health status, including a physical and dental exam, a snip of hair, and yes, fecal material. (They're apparently quite willing to donate that last bit, she says.) Her hypothesis is that animal populations probably suffer from human encroachment even before the humans have actually taken away their habitat. Proving this may help inform policy about how and where to create sanctuaries.

Meredith will be taking us along on her field work and living conditions in this strange and wonderful island through a blog: Lemur Health and Conservation. Connectivity is sure to be a frustration, but as you might have noticed, Meredith is pretty game for tough conditions. She might even be able to post some video. Stay tuned!

Chemo and Radiation Sometimes Make Tumor Stronger

Many of us who have watched a loved one suffer through cancer treatments sort of suspected this might be true: some solid tumor cells that avoid being killed by radiation or chemo actually become tougher and better able to survive the next round of treatment.

Unfortunately, it's a lot like what Friedrich Nietzsche said: whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

A Duke team led by Mark Dewhirst in radiation oncology has figured out how and why this happens: The solid tumor cells' innate ability to signal surrounding tissues to give them more oxygen gets turned up a notch by the treatment assault. Next time around, they're that much better able to resist.

Dewhirst and colleagues are now working on ways to turn off this gimme-oxygen signal in conjunction with chemo and radiation to really root the @#$%@s out. They've also made a movie showing the constant flux of oxygen in tumors, rising and falling like the tides. It's something that's only recently been identified.

Dancing Differently to the Same Drummer

Speaking of MEMS... okay, we weren't, but we should be. Micro electro-mechanical systems, MEMS, represent an exciting frontier that melds computer chips, robotics, and other great stuff, like plumbing and electrical.

Bruce Donald, a Duke professor of biochemistry and computer science, has developed some mind-blowing MEMS robots that move around in very precise patterns without any wires attached. A group of four of them, in fact, can be made to do different dance moves in response to a single set of incoming signals. In this case, a high-frequency electronic pulse. Their stage? Smaller than the head of a pin.

A swarm of these things might be used to carry biological samples around in a tiny environment, for example, or build something.

They remind me of those buzzing "electronic" football and hockey games baby-boomers had as kids, where the little players would careen around the rink randomly as the thing buzzed madly beneath their plastic feet. Only, unlike that stupid game, these players go right where they should!

One to watch, for sure.