LINKS - November 1st, 2023
Welcome to LINKS — my attempt to provide Rhapsody readers with five interesting stories that tell us something about what it means to be human. LINKS is published every Wednesday. Have a link you want to share? Drop it in the comments.
How a Weight-Loss Trend on TikTok Might Encourage Eating Disorders
By Lori Youmshajekian, Scientific American
“Only a handful of studies—mostly from the 1980s—have looked into the caloric effects of purging through laxative misuse. All of them have concluded that it has a negligible effect. One study found that extreme laxative use only reduced caloric absorption by about 12 percent, and it resulted in up to 200 fluid ounces of diarrhea. This is dangerous because severe diarrhea can cause dehydration, which disrupts organ function in the long term. When taken at levels beyond their recommended amounts, osmotic laxatives can also affect the balance of electrolytes—they strip the body of the essentials it needs to function. Misusing laxatives over long periods of time can permanently damage the digestive system, leaving users with chronic constipation. ‘Over time you discover that it’s kind of a devil’s bargain,’ Harrison says.”
How Music Moves us
By Milton Mermikides (Gresham College), Aeon
‘We find music wherever there are people,’ says the professor and musician Milton Mermikides near the opening of this lecture at Gresham College in London, in which he sets out to make sense of why that’s the case. Taking the audience on a journey that begins with an image of a 30,000-year-old flute carved from a wooly mammoth tusk and ends with an audiovisual rendering of Eclipse (1973) by Pink Floyd, Mermikides traverses musicology, anthropology, psychology and neuroscience to detail the myriad ways music triggers our primal instincts and activates our emotions. Brimming with fascinating examples and moving moments, Mermikides offers captivating insights into the many things humanity has learned about our love of music, and what remains a mystery.
A new theory of matter may help explain life
By Lee Cronin, iai news
“Assembly Theory promises to reshape our understanding of how complex phenomena like life can emerge from simple particle interactions. But its implications may reach even farther. For example, the assembly perspective could offer new insights into our own advanced technologies, which are also assembled from component parts. Applying AT to human innovations like computers or aircraft could uncover parallels to biological evolution. Common principles may govern the open-ended generation of novelty in both nature and human engineering. Shared assembly dynamics may manifest across any substrate where combinatorial complexity arises through historical contingency.”
A History of America’s Culture Wars In Fashion
“Fashion is often reduced to a series of irrational swings. Hemlines rise and fall. Trousers get slimmer or fuller. But more than just trends, fashion is a type of social language often used as a marker of identity. Codes, as cultural theorist Stuart Hall noted once, ‘cover the face of social life and render it classifiable, intelligible and meaningful.’ Clothing works in the same manner, and the history of dress can easily be read as a series of battles around identity—race, class, gender and sexuality. The meaning of these codes changes over time: One group picks up a garment, another moves on. Perhaps the best way to understand how America has always fought its culture wars is through our wardrobe.”
How to harness the power of randomness to optimize your decision-making
“Another way in which randomness can help us to make difficult decisions about the future is in the avoidance of “analysis paralysis.” If you’re anything like me, then you might experience a mild form of this phenomenon when choosing what to order from an extensive menu. Should you go for the risotto or the burger, the steak or the pasta? I am so indecisive that the waiter often has to come back a few minutes after taking everyone else’s order to finally hear my choice. All the choices seem good, but by trying to ensure I choose the absolute best option, I am running the risk of missing out altogether. “