Vegetarian spiders

We all know that spiders eat insects, or the occasional bird or small rodent, but it now appear that there exist a breed which is vegetarian, or at least partly vegetarian.

The 60-Second Science podcast over at Scientific American has more on this: Odd Spider Prefers Salad

Scientific American also has an article about the subject

Unusual Spider Species Passes Up Live Prey for Plants

Of the 40,000-plus spider species known, only a few nibble on plants—typically, as a dietary supplement of nectar or simply as an accidental ingestion of pollen. A new paper, published online today in Current Biology, details the natural history of Bagheera kiplingi, a jumping spider that has vegetarian leanings, and its interesting arrangement with a plant and the ants that protect it.

Certain acacia plants (Vachellia collinsii) and ants (Pseudomyrmex peperi) have developed a mutually beneficial arrangement. The plant provides hollow areas for the ants to nest, along with nutritious nuggets, called Beltian bodies, for them to eat. For their part, the ants help to fend off would-be plant eaters. The crafty B. kiplingi, however, has thwarted the system—also feasting on the plant while managing to outmaneuver attacking ants.

It's not known why the spiders prefers to eat the less nutritious plant leaves to other prey, but interestingly enough, the behavior of the spiders while the hunt is the same as it would have been if it was more traditional prey

Despite their unusual meals, these spiders still exhibit some more traditional hunting behavior. "They're like miniature cats," Meehan says. "They literally stalk and hunt the plant,"

I can't help smile at the thought of a spider stalking a plant.

The original study is behind a paywall, but can be found here.

National Geographic also writes about the spider: "Surreal" Vegetarian Spider Found -- A First

On the evilness of companies

Scientific American has a long article up on whether companies have to be evil to survive.

Do All Companies Have to be Evil? by Michael Shermer

In the 1987 film Wall Street, Michael Douglas’s character, the high-rolling corporate raider Gordon Gekko, explains why America has lost its standing atop the industrial world: “The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated.” He elaborates:

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed—for lack of a better word—is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms—greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge—has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed—you mark my words—will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

In the now famous “greed” speech, we find several myths that I hope to bust in this article: that capitalism is grounded in and depends on cutthroat com­petition; that businesspeople must be self-centered and egotistical to achieve success; that evolution is selfish and only winnows and never creates; and, of course, that greed is good.

Humans are by nature tribal and xenophobic, and thus evolution has enabled in all of us the capacity for evil. Fortunately, we are also by nature prosocial and cooperative. By studying how modern companies work, we can gain insights into the evolutionary underpinnings of our morality, including concepts such as reciprocity, altruism and fairness. When we apply these evolutionary findings to economic life, we learn that Enron and the Gordon Gekko “Greed Is Good” ethic are the exception and that Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto is the rule. Two conditions must be present to accentuate the latter: first, internal trust reinforced by personal relationships, and, second, external rules supported by social institutions. The contrast between Enron and Google here serves to demonstrate what in corporate environments creates trust or distrust.

I think Shermer makes some really good points, but I won't really go into the article here. Instead I will go more into what I think of the subject at hand.

Back in the days when I started at business college, one of the newer focuses were to ensure that students also learned some ethics, and not just cold management. This was caused by some rather spectacular cases of fraud, comparable in some sense to Enron, though obviously on a much smaller scale (Denmark being a much smaller economy after all). Those cases resulted in some rather noteworthy law changes, at least one suicide, and several jail terms.

In spite of such cases, I don't really believe that companies are evil, since I don't really believe that people are evil as such. People are greedy, and therefore companies should be regulated and kept under supervision, but that something for a different discussion.

These days, I mostly work in IT projects in financial companies. If there ever were companies that you would expect to be evil, or greedy, then it would be financial companies. Interestingly enough, I haven't found this to be the case - of course, a lot of that has to do with the fact that that sector is heavily regulated in Denmark, and thus the possibilities are limited, but a lot of it has something to do with the fact that many of the people in this sector are somewhat idealistic.
Yes, they try to make money, but they are very focused on the fact that they are actually helping customers making very important decisions, on which their entire future can be based.

So, what I am trying to say, is that companies certainly don't have to be evil, or even greedy. If the company culture is right, then it's quite possible to have a profitable company, focusing on their customers' needs, rather than profit.

Scientific American defends Duesberg article

Or rather the choice to bring the article.

When Pariahs Have Good Ideas

Even mentioning the name Peter Duesberg inflames strong feelings, both pro and con. After gaining fame in 1970 as the virologist who first identified a cancer-causing gene, in the 1980s he became the leading scientific torchbearer for the so-called AIDS dissidents who dispute that HIV causes the immunodeficiency disorder. To the dissidents, Duesberg is Galileo, oppressed for proclaiming scientific truth against biomedical dogma. A far larger number of AIDS activists, physicians and researchers, however, think Duesberg has become a crank who refuses to accept abundant proof that he is wrong. To them, he is at best a nuisance and at worst a source of dangerous disinformation on public health.

I think this can be said to be a fairly reasonable summary, except the don't mention the fact that Duesberg's claims flies in the face of all evidence. It could also have been good if the Scientific Amercian had explained why Duesberg is competely and utterly wrong.

Readers may therefore be shocked to see Duesberg as an author in this month's issue. He is not here because we have misgivings about the HIV-AIDS link. Rather Duesberg has also developed a novel theory about the origins of cancer, one that supposes a derangement of the chromosomes, rather than of individual genes, is the spark that ignites malignant changes in cells. That concept is still on the fringe of cancer research, but laboratories are investigating it seriously. Thus, as wrong as Duesberg surely is about HIV, there is at least a chance that he is significantly right about cancer. We consider the case worthy of bringing to your attention, with the article beginning on page 52.

Wouldn't Medical Hypothesis be a more suitable place for Duesberg's article than Scientific American? At least until there is some evidence of his hypothesis?

Thousands of scientific papers appear in technical journals every month; why do some rate more fame and journalistic attention? It helps for science news to have dramatic relevance to human affairs: Is there strong new hope for curing a disease, transforming the economy, building a better mousetrap? Alternatively, reporters and editors may gravitate toward new science that easily inspires the public's sense of wonder, as so many astronomy stories do. And reports that appear in certain major scientific journals tend to get more play because those publications have a self-fulfilling reputation for releasing the most noteworthy papers. (It doesn't hurt that those journals have particularly strong public relations departments, too.)

When we look at submitted manuscripts from scientists, we consider it a reassuring sign when the authors forthrightly acknowledge both their collaborators and their competitors and note potential conflicts of interest before we ask. If we see that they are describing the science of their rivals fairly, we can have more confidence that they are being similarly candid about their own work. (Still, the old nuclear disarmament treaty maxim applies: trust, but verify.) We typically steer away from controversial ideas too new to have much supporting evidence. Those that have lasted for years and accumulated some substantiation have earned consideration. Our judgments are imperfect, but they tend to mirror those of the scientific community.

Since there doesn't seem to be any evidence yet for Duesberg's ideas, I fail to see why they then included the article. And what in Duesberg's recent track record shows that he has any ability to evaluate scientific work done by others? Or by himself for that matter?

Blots on a researcher's history often should bear on regard for his or her new work. Scientists who have intentionally published fraudulent papers, as the stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang so notoriously did two years ago, may be irredeemably tainted. But to dismiss a scientist solely for holding some wrong or controversial views risks sweeping away valuable nuggets of truth. We respect the opinions of any readers who may criticize our choice to publish Duesberg in this case but hope they will nonetheless evaluate his ideas about cancer on their own merits.

It's not the fact that Duesberg holds wrong or controversial views that should keep him away from the journal's pages, but the fact that he demonstrately cannot recognize flaws in his own science. His "research" on HIV/AIDS has been shown to be wrong numerous times, and yet he persists in insisting on it, and even try to affect African policy on the issue. Something which not only endangers people, but which my surely have resulted in unnecessary deaths.

By bringing an article by Duesberg, Scientific American lends credibility to Duesberg - not only on the hypothesis discussed in the article, but also on his other dangerous ideas. That's why the article should not have been brought, unless there is some evidence of his ideas being right.