If life once existed on Mars, it probably means that there was once liquid water as well, because all known life forms life need water (and a few other things, of course).

Thousands of images from Mars – made by US and European satellite missions – give even more reason to believe that water once existed on its surface. The images show traces of rivers, lakes and even oceans. Or, at least, that's what it looks like.

{mosimage}Erin Kraal is a young American scientist who worked at Utrecht University, the Netherlands in 2006 and 2007. She is now at Virginia Tech University, USA. Erin uses simple experiments to produce miniature landscapes that are quite similar to those seen on images of Mars taken from satellites and the Mars rovers.

By comparing her results with what we know about Mars she has learned more about what exactly happened on this planet long time ago. Erin can now tell, for instance, that water had flown for only a short interval of time (a few thousands of years) in certain places on Mars. This makes a difference, because if Mars had been wet for a long time, life might have formed on this fascinating planet.

In the animation below you will see Erin with Dutch highschool student Quirine in the Utrecht lab. Quirine pours red dye in the miniriver, showing how an alluvial fan works (explained in the next article and film).

{playerflv}420|320|#ffffff|true|mars_loop_metknop.flv|popup|{mosimage}{/playerflv}

Finally, start your own experiments and discover new things about the Red Planet! We will tell you exactly how to do them.

Read Erin's article Water on Mars?{mospagebreak}

{playerflv}420|320|#ffffff|true|erosionsmall.flv|{mosimage}{/playerflv}

Erosion happens when grains of sediment (sand, gravel, clay) are picked up by a current.

Deposition occurs when these grains are laid down where the current slows or stops.

Watch the film in which Erin works in the Eurotank lab with Quirine Boertje and Rowana Geerlings, two girls from a Dutch highschool. 

{playerflv}420|320|#ffffff|true|ci-wonm_512k_stream.flv|popup|{mosimage}{/playerflv}

Read the article Water on Mars? by Erin Kraal

{mosimage} 

A book for Economy Freaks?

by Boris Böing and Leo Engele

This is the real thing, not your boring economy schoolbook. You won't fall asleep reading this book. You will learn how the authors found out – by a clever use of economic theory – that the Ku Klux Klan (the racist creeps with the white hoods) operate just like real-estate agents. Or, why cocaine dealers make such a poor living. You would expect those gang-men to be rich, wouldn't you, but most of them actually live with their mothers!

{mosimage}Freakonomics was written by economy professor Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner. When The New York Times asked him to write an article on Levitt, Dubner discovered that the famous Chicago professor was not just an economist like so many others. Levitt investigates sports, crime and politics with the eye of an economist and comes with totally surprising results.

{mosimage}In 2001, together with John Donohue, he wrote an article, The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime. Between 1970 and 1973, the US government legalised abortion. Levitt and Donohue could demonstrate that, around eighteen years after abortion was legalised, crime was much less. This effect was stronger in states with higher numbers of abortion. Their explanation is that unwanted children commit more crime than wanted children. The legalisation of abortion resulted in fewer unwanted children. So, when these children were 18 years old, there were less of them to begin committing crimes. (See Legalized abortion and crime effect.) However, Levitt's and Donohue's ideas met strong opposition by those who believe that abortion has a bad effect on society.

Ku Klux Klan 

Chapter 2: How Is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents? is one of the most intriguing chapters of this book. Levitt compares real-estate agents with the KKK. The keyword of this chapter is: Information. How can you become more powerful than the KKK and how can you sell your house at a higher price than a real-estate agent would do for you?

If you have the same information they have.

{mosimage}What do we know about this secret and dangerous organisation, the KKK? That's an exciting story itself. After World War II, 30-year-old Stetson Kennedy wanted to find out about them. He decided to go undercover and become a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Under his false name John S. Perkins he found out a lot about the organisation. One of the things he discovered was that the Klansmen often threaten with, but don't always use, violence.

During his first weeks undercover, Kennedy made plans to do maximum damage to the Klan. Several attempts were unsuccessful until he ran into a group of children playing games with secret passwords. This gave him the brilliant idea that he could damage the KKK most by revealing their secret passwords.

The radio programme "The Adventures of Superman" made a lot of secret information about the Ku Klux Klan, including their passwords, public and ridiculed it. Now, Kennedy had them where he wanted them: suddenly, the Klan became unpopular and lost many members. The Klan-leaders had a nasty surprise when the radio-makers published the new passwords, that the Klan had quickly created, in their next programme. Although the Klan still held many members, the organisation was never the same again ....

An expert is someone who has information that most ordinary people do not have. That's why you use the services of a real-estate agent (a house expert) if you want to sell your house. You probably don't have much experience in selling houses and you are afraid that you will sell your house for less than what it's worth. Or, don't even sell it at all. A real-estate agent takes care of all this and sells your house fast and at the right price, you think. You are happy to have an expert at your side. What you don't know is that the real-estate agent only sees you as a source of income.

Research shows that a real-estate agent keeps his own house for sale for ten days longer (waiting for better offers) than his clients' houses. He also sells his own house at a better price: on average $ 10,000 more. Why would the agent not do the same with your house? The answer is simple: if the real-estate agent has your house on sale for ten days longer, it will cost him a lot of time and effort. And he is not going to get much profit from it. For every $ 10,000 extra you receive (for a house that costs, let's say, $ 300,000) he only receives $ 150 extra. That's not much money for a whole lot of extra work. So, he will tell you to accept the first offer that you get, because it's such an attractive offer. For him, yes. Not for you.

It's very surprising to read how real-estate agents think and to find out that they are not interested in the best for their clients, but only in what's best for them. It's also surprising to find out that one person going undercover can damage an entire large and dangerous organisation like the Ku Klux Klan. It's all about who controls the important information.Like the other chapters of this book, this chapter contains many interesting facts and important data.

Drugs dealers and their moms

Chapter 3, "Why do drugs dealers still live with their mothers?" is another good one. It looks at the subject from different sides and explains it well.

Levitt used information that he received from someone who became involved in the drugs scene by coincidence. One day, a gang member hands him over some very secret information: the gang's entire bookkeeping over the past four years, including all financial transactions. The books made it quite clear who held the power positions in the gang.

Levitt tells the story from the point of view of his informant, and this makes it even more believable to us. He also makes it clear how difficult the life of a drugs dealer is. And there's your answer: drugs dealers live with their moms because they cannot afford a house of their own. To gang members often the only opportunity for a better life is dealing drugs.

This chapter also compares drugs gangs with American enterprises. These two have more in common than you would think! For one, those at the top make the really big money while the lower ranks have to make do with very little. Those who make less money usually accept their position because they hope that, one day, they will also get to the top where they can make their own fortune.We learned a lot of new things about drugs dealers and got an entirely new view of the world of gangs.

{mosimage}The introduction is one of the least interesting parts of the book. The authors give away many of the explanations and conclusions that we think they should have left for the chapters. This takes away some of the thrills of reading this book, which is a pity.An other less interesting chapter is chapter 1: "What do school teachers and sumo wrestlers have in common?" There were too many numbers for our liking, and we lost track of what the authors wanted to say.

A last comment: the authors once too often tell us how much they like each other. Very strange, we think. It's a bit like advertising yourself in your own book. Pieces from an article about Steven Levitt appear between chapters. Why not save these for a section at the end 'About the Authors', if you really need this.

Conclusion

We are very enthusiastic about this book. It makes you think about topics you would never have thought about. Levitt and Dubner make connections between areas that you would not think they were related. Take the example of the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents. They also discuss a great variety of subjects so it never becomes boring.

So, if you want to know why teachers, as well as sumo wrestlers (the big fat guys), cheat, and much more surprising topics: read this book!

Sources 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Levitt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect  

Battling scientific bullshit: a lost cause? 

by Flip Schrameijer

In January 2007, 26-year old Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bündchen was in the limelights again.

We knew she could walk the walk but could she also talk the talk?

She told the São Paulo newspaper O Globo: “I never suffered from anorexia because I had a very strong family base. Parents are responsible, not the fashion industry.”

The science for celebrities campaign

Many people believe everything celebreties say. They see them as role models, examples. In an ideal world stupid celebs would stick to their own job. Unfortunately, this world is far from ideal as we all know. There are many more ‘Gisele Bündchens’ who dump their bullshit into our living room. What can you do about it? Well, become a caveman. It might make you famous!

At the beginning of 2007 the British organization Sense about Science had enough of it. They could not sit and suffer any longer. They started a campaign asking celebrities to check their facts before saying eh… things that are scientifically wrong. Their service department took it a step further: celebs can call them for scientific advice. Now they can start spreading ideas that are scientifically right.
But something else is even more important. Sense about Science tries to stop the circulation of damaging ideas. Ideas such as blaming parents for their children’s anorexia.

{mosimage}Have we now seen the worst of it all?

Nope. A leaflet by Sense about Science quotes the English actress Juliet Stevenson (‘Bend them like Beckham’). About the combined vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella she says: “I was alarmed at the idea of three diseases being injected into her system in one go. I thought, bloody hell, that’s an awful lot for this tiny thing.”

Prof. Adam Finn is a children’s doctor at the University of Bristol. He warns people about the danger of ‘common sense statements’:
“Ms Stevenson’s concerns are shared by many parents because they seem like common sense. But sometimes common sense is nonsense. Even tiny babies’ immune systems handle many new infections at once, no problem. The best advice is: avoid needless risk by protecting children with full, prompt immunisation.”
Imagine parents refusing to have their babies vaccinated, just because Juliet ‘would never lie to them.

As the leaflet shows, the number of scientific subjects celebrities don’t understand is alarming.

{mosimage}‘Patsy Stone’ about chemicals

Joanna Lumley is an actress. She plays the chain smoking, vodka bottle rattling Patsy Stone in ‘Absolutely Fabulous’. She is caught blah blah-ing on a vegan (no meat, no milk) website. Linking cancer and diet, she said: "We cannot go on force-feeding animals chemicals and growth stimulants the way we are. Why do you think cancer is roaring ahead at the moment?"

John Toy is the medical director of Cancer Research UK. Patsy’s statement doesn’t impress him. He could educate her and watch his favourite tv program (Absolutely Fabulous) at the same time: "Cancer is not 'roaring ahead'. It is more common mostly because people are living longer. It is essential that 'cancer causing' claims are based only on scientifically proven facts, not scaremongering [frightening people]."

Madonna about nuclear waste

{mosimage}Last August, Madonna told a Sunday newspaper she had been working with scientists. They wanted to find a way to "neutralise radiation".  She even claimed to have decontaminated a lake near the exploded nuclear plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine.

Nick Evans is an enviromental radio chemist at Loughborough University. It is clear Madonna has no idea what she is talking about. Nick: "Radioactivity cannot be neutralised, it can only be moved from one place to another until it decays away at its own rate. There are no magical solutions."

Fighting false beliefs: an uphill battle?

Sense about Science has 1400! scientists supporting the offensive against scientific bullshit. There is more in life than making a fool of (in)famous people. There are also popular ‘problems’ to take a good look at. Think about it! Most people hold nonsense ideas about almost any subject. Research on animals is simply neccesary in many cases. Alternative medicine can never cure malaria. Genetically manipulated food is needed to combat hunger in the world. It might not sound pretty. But at least it’s real! What do you like better?

Celebrities aren’t that original at all. They only make the false beliefs stronger. It looks like Sense about Science is fighting an uphill, if not hopeless, battle.

Paul Stokes has a very funny way of making this point clear. He writes about researchers:
“It must be galling to spend all your time in a lab proving homeopathy is hokum, only for some unqualified nutjob like Prince Charles to stand up and assert it works and for everyone to agree with him. Of course it is important that policy on issues like GM [genetically manipulated] food is based on scientific research, not that that seems likely in this country. There is a climate of unreason abroad, but daft celebs are just another minor manifestation of it, not a cause.”

Stokes likes jokes. About the scientific help-desk:
“In response to all this, the ‘Sense people’ have produced a helpful leaflet for the stars pointing out they are all idiots who do not know what they are talking about. Just in case they still don't get it, which is quite likely, they have also set up a celebrity telephone helpline for the famous to call and do some proper research before they start spouting off. Wow, imagine working on that. One minute you'll have Jade Goody (see note) on seeking insight into the Einsteinian universe, the next it's [glamour model] Jodie Marsh looking for something on string theory, a subject close to her chest due to the fact that most of her outfits are made of string and are also, largely, theoretical.”

Richard Holden writes a blog called ‘One born every minute’. He is also sceptical about the campaign:
“Celebrities are unlikely to actually read this leaflet, of course, and, as much as I approve of any attempts to cut through the sheer amount of bullshit that is peddled about science, I just find it a bit of a shame that the best way to get a bit of publicity about the importance of scientific knowledge is to just attach the word ‘celebrity’ to it (a word which makes me a feel a bit ill just to have to type). I somehow doubt the tide of rubbish which is uttered on a daily basis is likely to be turned back by campaigns such as this…”

Cause for optimism

About pop songs Holden writes:
“Most bands or artists don’t seem to have much time for writing songs about science. Maybe because it’s pretty much the least hip thing in existence. Or, perhaps just because they tend to be far too busy indulging in some quasi-mystical philosophy to think about how the universe might actually work.”

{mosimage}But, believe it or not, some songs are indeed about science and Holden has dug them up and presents the one's on his site which can also be found on YouTube. So, check it out (link below):
“... and so I present… the best, no, the only songs I’ve managed to find that are about science and on YouTube.”

The ‘Sense people’ keep faith as well. Chris Tyler is the scientific support co-ordinator of the celebrity campaign. He tells us there were hundreds of positive reactions to the campaign. Only a few of them came from the celebs themselves. The famous illusionist Derren Brown did though.

Guess what? Derren turned out to be a realist. He told the BBC:
"We are more than aware that the media prefer a shocking story over delicate fact. In areas like food, environment and medicine, this can have serious results."

{mosimage}There is another reason for optimism. For the first time lots of scientists are getting together. They want to battle nonsense. Tracey Brown is the director of Sense about Science. She told BBC Radio:
“Scientists, traditionally a quiet bunch, are now trying to redress the balance and finding ways of promoting fact over misinformation.”

Even the president of the Royal Society of Sciences, Lord Rees, sounded the alarm bell. He asked the scientific community to become more visible. He wants to see more scientists in public debates about their research. It sounds like a direct order, doesn’t it? The wave of garbage ideas will not be stopped by these efforts, I’m afraid. But in the long run it’s bound to make a difference. Especially if new generations become more aware of scientific bullshit. 

Now, before you comment on this article, do the experiment:  How much rubbish do you believe?

It will only take a few minutes. Test here>>

Sources

Sense about Science website

Leaflet Science for Celebrities

Paul Stokes' article in Scotland on Sunday

Jade Goody is a British reality television celebrity. As a participant in Big Brother she bullied co-participant, the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty, causing a scandal in which Jade was accused of racism. back

Richard Holden's blog One born every minute with links to YouTube

How can we know what is scientifically true? Go to Chapter 2 of Nich Strobel's Astronomy Notes here.

{mosimage}Every day you are told nonsense ideas. They can range from unscientific to outright rubbish, which can even be harmful or dangerous. (Read Celebrities & Science)

You can find out just how widespread nonsense ideas actually are. Copernicus has made a list of questions to challenge you, your friends and classmates. The final score tells where you stand between a real scientist and a real rubbish bin. Send us the results! (Please give us an estimate of the average age of the people who took part in the test.)

Tell us if you do not agree with the truth or falsehood of these statements, or have questions about them!

The test will only take a few minutes. Test here>>

Experiments by Arie van Scheepen and Marc Luitjens*

Imagine.

Imagine you are the sole survivor from a cargo ship wrecked in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. You swim ashore on an isolated island far away from the civilized world. The island houses an ancient tribe, but they seem to have completely missed the industrial revolution. Anyway, they did save your life and you would love do something in return.

After a while you get around the language problem and the chief of the tribe gives you a tour of the island. The island is divided in two by a wide and deep gorge. Foaming white breakers beat the walls of the gorge and make it impossible for the people to reach the other side of the island. Unfortunately, this is the fertile part of the island rich with trees bearing the most delicious fruit. The poor tribe is stuck on the barren part of the island with little chance to enrich their diet.

The chief tells you that they only have a few miserable trees on their side that they have tried to use to build a bridge across the gorge. Yet the trees weren't long and strong enough to carry them with the loads of fruit.

You offer to help them, and start thinking about this problem. In the meantime, a container loaded with steel bars has washed ashore from your ship. Each one of them is too short, however, to cross the gap. You cannot afford to waste the precious steel so you need to do some model experiments first.

At some point you find some packs of spaghetti from the ship's cargo and you get an idea to build a construction. You remember that dry spaghetti is the perfect material for model experiments of steel bridges ...

{mosimage}The main problem is that just tying a few bars together to make a longer bridge won't make it strong enough to carry people with their loads. You vaguely remember what railway bridges looked like at home. They are made of triangles of steel bars to make them stiffer. Without these structures bridges as we know them now would not exist. They divide the forces (people and other loads) that are working on the bridge. The load then is not carried by a single part of the bridge, but is evenly distributed over all parts. This way you make stronger bridges with less material.

We need model experiments to test different constructions before you build the real thing. This is how engineers work. You don't want to have your bridge collapse the first time someone walks on it. The main point is that the material that you use for testing in the small scale model behaves exactly like the stuff (in this case steel) in the real bridge.

And here the spaghetti comes in. Spaghetti in a model bridge is just as strong as the steel in the big one. If you want to understand more about testing the strength of scale models read here:

We had lots of fun doing the experiments and the results really surprised us. After many tries, we found a construction that was many times stronger than the bars just tied together.Here is a description of the experiments.

Why not try them yourself?

>>Spaghetti Bridge Experiment {mospagebreak}

• {mosimage}If you want to know about Nature,
• If you don't always believe your schoolbooks,
• If you want to find out things by yourself,
• If you like to experiment ...
  

Copernicus is the website for you!

This is the place where you will find exciting projects.
You will make new discoveries in astronomy, geology, physics or biology. If you want...

by Flip Schrameijer

The Dutch geobiologist Appy Sluijs received the ‘Outstanding Young Scientist Award 2007’ of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). The EGU is the largest society of Earth and planetary sciences in Europe. Its members are researchers in all sorts of geosciences such as geology, geophysics, climatology, oceanography and space science.

{mosimage}Sluijs did geobiological research that can help predict the climate of the future. So he made a contribution, which is at the heart of the present debate about climate change. At the age of 26 he is the youngest ever to receive this award. I visit him at the university of Utrecht at the Institute of Environmental Biology. His microscope and two small desks - his and a colleague’s – barely leave space for two chairs. Sluijs doesn’t care much about his office. It’s all about science for him.

Why did you win this award?

{mosimage}“I did research into the period between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the formation of the polar ice sheets, that is between 65 and 33 million years ago. At that time the concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) were about the same as those expected for the next century. This episode in Earth’s history is often called ‘the Greenhouse Earth’ and it was warm. There were no ice sheets on the continents and crocodiles lived in Greenland! Information about the climate during that era could help us a lot in predicting how the climate will change during the coming centuries.”

“Nobody was there, so we have to look for tell-tale signs. I used a group of algae – like the ones you have to scrape off the inside of your aquarium – which are called ‘dinoflagellates’. {mosimage}We find fossils of these algae in different  rock layers that formed through time at the bottom of the oceans. These fossils can tell us a lot about the ecology of the seas, which in turn says a lot about the climate. Along with the algae, we also use other clues from the layers that can give information about the water temperatures and the acidity of sea water.”

“Specifically, I studied climate change during an episode, some 55 Million years ago, in which the Earth released a giant fart of CO₂ into the atmosphere, much like today but then through a natural cause. On average, the earth warmed by about 5 degrees Celsius and the oceans acidified (became more acid). Such changes had strong effects on marine ecosystems and caused extinctions at that time. Some of such changes in ecosystems will be hard to prevent, even if we reduce the use of fossil fuels, such as natural oil and gas.”

Were you the best in your class in highschool and a real nerd?

“No. I belonged to the better half, my grades were above average, but not extreme. My best subjects were biology, physics, chemistry, math and art.

I didn’t do much homework. I played football on a reasonable level for a while. As so many Dutch families, we used to spend our holidays in France, where we walked in nature and did some bird-watching. I learned a lot from my dad who is a biology teacher. I have always been interested in nature. It runs in the family: many of my nephews and nieces have the same passion, although I am the first in my family to get a PhD.”

How did you get into geobiology?

“In high school I didn’t even know geobiology existed. I really wanted to study environmental sciences at university, but this was only possible from the second year onwards. For the first year you had a choice between nine different subjects. I chose biology because I thought this would be the best preparation for an environmental sciences study.”

“If someone had said, when I was fifteen, that only eight years later I would go reconstruct the Earth’s climate of 55 Million year ago, I would say he was crazy!”

“My interest in evolution and time scales of millions of years was aroused much earlier, at a time when dinosaurs were a hype. I found it fascinating to imagine that the world looked completely different millions of years ago. I liked time scales because they are all so unimaginable. You can perhaps imagine a time span of ten years, but one generation is much harder already and ten a thousand or a hundred thousand years are almost impossible to imagine. So how about a million, or many millions of years?”

{mosimage}“During the first year of biology, we got subjects with a geobiological flavour. I never knew how fascinating it was to know about the workings of the earth, to realize it’s a system that changes all the time, although we don’t notice it. When it appeared that the start of the second year would focus much more on geobiology, I decided to stay with biology.”

Did you become a nerd then?

“Well, I had odd jobs to make some extra money, I played the guitar and went out with my friends - and still do. But I must admit, that changed towards the end of my studies. When I was doing my first research subject in Utrecht, I spent much more time on my studies. Even more so when I did my last internship at the University of California in Santa Cruz.”

{mosimage}“I don’t know about being a nerd, but I think it’s all about the right balance between working hard and having fun at the same time. After that I went on an expedition to drill into the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean, some thousand kilometres west of the African country Namibia. This ship, the JOIDES Resolution, is 120 metres long and there were more than a hundred people aboard. Thirty were scientists, among whom world specialists. I was the youngest: I had my 22nd birthday on board of this ship.” 

“The ocean was three to four kilometres deep and we drilled 400 metres into the seabed. During the drilling, pvc-pipes of about 10 centimetres in diametre are brought on deck. They are full of sediment layers that accumulated on the seafloor during the past 80 million years. If you cut these open, you can see and analyse all the geological layers and the fossils they contain. For instance you can see the result of the asteroid impact 65 million years ago, which killed the dinosaurs. You find different fossils before and after this event, because – like other species - many marine planktons became extinct. {mosimage}Like the impact layer, the event 55 million years ago, which I studied, is clearly visible as a red clay layer because all the white chalky material became dissolved in the acidified ocean.” 

“The expedition lasted two months. I’ve also been on an expedition in Wyoming (US), where we studied mammal fossils in the desert that are preserved in fossil soils. That too was really adventurous. One day a storm came through our camp and ruined our tent and some gear. This year we’ll go on expedition to Spitsbergen at the rim of the Arctic Ocean."

{mosimage}"During such expeditions you get to know eachother well. It’s always great to meet someone again (e.g. at a science conference) with whom I’ve been on a field trip. It’s a wonderful international community of people with the same passion. Over the years, you have friends all over the world.”

{mosimage}

Watch the film showing life on board of the expedition ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and Appy at his institute.

{playerflv}420|320|#ffffff|true|ocean_drilling_512k_stream.flv|popup|{mosimage}{/playerflv}

Sources 

Homepage of Appy Sluijs. 

See here how drilling in the deep ocean is done. See also article.

EGU Outstanding Young Scientist Award 2007 page. 

See the cover of Appy's PhD thesis, painted by his mother. It shows the same dinoflagellate as the one in the top photo migrating towards the North Pole during a hot period 55 million years ago.

by Flip Schrameijer

Ask your grandparents how their parents reacted when they listened to jazz music when they were your age. They may tell you that the police beat the stuffing out of dear old Granddad when he attended a concert by Lionel Hampton in 1953.

{mosimage}Lionel Who? Yes. But that was half a century ago!

Jazz. Yuck! That's really stuffy old music! you might say. Negro music it was called in the newspapers in those days. And that was considered very bad influence to young people.

Or, ask your parents. Maybe they will tell you about when they were beaten up by the coppers during a concert of the Rolling Stones.The Rolling Stones?! But Mick Jagger is Sir Mick now. Surely he didn't have a bad influence on my sweet Mom and Dad?

{mosimage}So, what's new? Now it's rap and hip hop. A new generation of scientists is worried that their children will start having sex at thirteen because they listened to rap music. OK, some rappers don't beat about the bush. Sex is on their minds. And it may not be the kind that your parents and teachers feel easy about.But, does listening to rap, or to pop music in general, encourage young people to do things that may be bad for them? Let's lend science an ear.

Is rap music bad for your health?

Yes, say recent American studies, and in more ways than one. A team of researchers from Berkeley, California, investigated more than a thousand American college students between 15 and 26 years of age. Students who often listen to rap music, use more alcohol, more marijuana and more party drugs such as XTC.

It’s a health-risk in another way too, since rap-enthusiasts appear more aggressive as well: they are more often in fist fights and are more likely to threaten others with a knife or a gun. And risk being hurt by the way.

And it is rap music especially, the researchers say. Rock & Roll fans appear to be less aggressive, while Reggae-lovers use more marijuana – of course – but considerably less party drugs. Techno-fans use somewhat more XTC, but overall rap comes out ‘worst’.

Three years earlier, American researchers from Atlanta, Georgia, reported  a study of more than 500 black girls, age 12 to 17. They interviewed the girls three times over a period of three years. They were so selected that at the first interview all of them were virgins. Of course, many of them had kissed, ‘made out’, or had engaged in more ‘advanced’ amorous activity. A year later, 17 percent had had sexual intercourse and another two years later 36 percent. Many others who hadn’t had intercourse, had gone further in other, more advanced activities.

The researchers found that girls who had watched rap videos for more than an hour a day were the most likely to have started sex early. They had had had multiple sexual partners two times more often than the ones who watched considerably less. Also, they were one and a half times more likely to have acquired a new sexually transmitted disease, and used drugs and alcohol. The statistics are very convincing on this point. (See for both articles the sources below.) 

Do you believe it?

Research like this is about you and the behaviour of other young people. And it can easily be different from your own experiences. When rap music makes you and your friends feel happy, you immediately think someone who says rap leads to alcoholism must be mad. Moreover, when none of your rap loving friends ever used drugs or behaved aggressively, you will think researchers who say these things must be dreadfully out of touch with reality.

Maybe they are a horrible gang of elderly people who have no appreciation for your favorite music. Or old people who have forgotten that at one time they themselves loved Rock & Roll, or the Rolling Stones. Maybe they had quarrels with their parents about their music but totally forgot about them.

This may be your initial response: in fact questioning the motives of the researchers. But, sorry, it’s the wrong response, because it’s unscientific. We cannot ignore the outcome of research, simply because we don’t like it or haven’t experienced it ourselves. The motives or the age of the researchers is totally irrelevant! The only thing that counts is the quality of the research itself.

Cause, effect, or something else?

{mosimage}The big question is: do these investigations indeed prove that watching rap videos or listening to rap is the cause for early sex, drug-taking, drinking or aggression. For instance: it could well be that girls who have sex at an early age are later attracted to rap videos that present sex as something fun, or even glamorous.

This possibility could be ruled out, however, because the researchers found that watching these videos happened before the increased sexual activity. That is why the girls were interviewed over a three year period.

In the first study about drinking, drug-taking and aggression however, the students were only interviewed once. So this possibility could not be ruled out, and the researchers indeed say exactly that. In other words: it could well be that students who like drinking, drug-taking and aggressive behaviour, start listening to rap music afterwards. Listening to rap music could be the effect and not the cause.

So, one thing could be the cause of the other, or the other way around. But it could well be that something else causes the two kinds of behaviour: drinking, aggression and premature sex on the one hand and listening to rap music and watching rap videos on the other.

This ‘something else’ could be all kinds of things and is called ‘third factors’. In the case of the black girls for instance, the researchers looked at the factor ‘parental guidance’. Girls who are often alone at home or whose parents often don’t know where they are, might have more opportunity to watch rap videos and engage in sex and drinking. Statistical analysis showed however that parental guidance was not such a ‘third factor’.

{mosimage}In the study with the students and rap music the researchers give a lot of attention to possible ‘third factors’. They included ‘sensation seeking’ (such as going to wild parties, doing scary things, doing “crazy” things just for fun) in their analysis and find this to be important.

In other words: people who like certain ‘dangerous’ behaviour and who like drinking, fighting and/or drug-taking also tend to like to listen to rap music. It might well be, the researchers say, that when ‘sensation seeking’ is taken into account fully, there is no link at all between rap music and drinking, fighting or drug-taking.

The researchers add it might be something different altogether such as the lifestyle of these young people that might explain a preference for rap music, as well as for drinking, drug-taking and/or aggressive behaviour.

The trouble with these third factors is that all possible third factors have to be identified and taken into account. At the moment there is not enough research into this subject. We cannot rule out that there are yet unknown third factors behind the relationship between rap and different kinds of unhealthy behaviour.

Bullshit or something else?

So: is it bullshit to say rap is dangerous to young people?

Frankly: we don’t know. Until today the research cannot decide what's true and what's not. We cannot say the dangers of rap have been proven, nor have they been disproved. 

What do you think?

With what you know now, you can make up your own mind. Let me give you some of my ideas.

I think the so called ‘third factors’ are really important. This simply means there is a reason why people who tend to engage in any of these behaviours: drinking, drug-taking, premature and dangerous (including unprotected) sex, or any combination of them, also listen more often than others to rap music, or watch rap video clips.

We do not believe that many young people who don't show these behaviours will start doing so just because they listen to, or watch rap. Of course there will always be some for whom rap music will be the last push.

When in doubt, it often helps to turn a question upside down. So you can ask yourself why listening and watching rap would not influence one’s behaviour, if only a little. It seems unlikely that watching rap stars for several hours a day having fun with certain things would leave no effect at all.

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Just think of this. Hard liquor used to be totally absent in the American rap-scene ten years ago, while today it is shown in most rap-videos. Nine out of ten rap-stars have since signed contracts with the liquor industry, according to Denise Herd of the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. Listen to this radio interview.

Obviously the liquor industry believes that rap promotes drinking, or they would not invest large sums of money in making hard liquor look cool in rap videos.

Your turn

We have set up two experiments that you can do with your class mates.  Follow this link , or go to the Experiments section.

Sources

The original article by the Berkeley psychologists, "Music, Substance Use, and Aggression"

And here is the study by the researchers from Atlanta, Georgia, USA, "A Prospective Study of Exposure to Rap Music Videos and African American Female Adolescents’ Health"

H ere is an article about risk taking behaviour "Are You A Risk Taker? What causes people to take risks?" By Marvin Zuckerman in Psychology Today

In the summer of 2006 an article by American psychologists Martino and his colleagues created a news hype: "Exposure to Degrading Versus Nondegrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behavior Among Youth"

See some news articles about this: 

"Degrading sexual lyrics tied to teen sex; which lyrics?" in USA Today

"Does Rap Put Teens at Risk?" - Study: Association Found Between Video Viewing Time and Risky Behaviors 

"Rap music blamed for teen pregnancy" in the Daily Mail