People lie. Those who are gifted purveyors of deceit use their skills to gain advantage in business, political and social situations.

Scientists want to know how to spot these liars.

UCLA psychologists recently combined an analysis of 60 separate studies on lies and deception, as well as their own research, into a paper published in the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry. The study will be a major component of interview training programs for detectives, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Psychologist Edward Geiselman, along with three graduate students, identified many subtle indicators that someone is being deceptive.

“Although deceptive people do not say much, they tend to spontaneously give justification for what little they are saying without being prompted,” Geiselman said.

Among the most reliable signs that someone is lying are repeating questions before answering them, slowing their speech and using more sentence fragments than normal.

“These habits give a liar more time to monitor the listener’s reaction to what they are saying. They try to read if you are buying their story,” Geiselman said.

Other signs include pursed lips, playing with hair and gesturing toward one’s self.

Many people often train themselves to become better liars. Geiselman worked with former UCLA psychologist Ronald Fisher to develop a detection technique called a “cognitive interview” to trip up trained liars.

“A deceptive person, even a professional liar, is under a heavy cognitive load,” Fisher said.

Liars must simultaneously maintain their stories while monitoring the listener’s reaction to it.

Fisher and Geiselman’s cognitive interview is designed to push cognitive load over the limit, exposing contradictions and inconsistencies. One of the most effective techniques in the cognitive interview is to have subjects tell their story backwards. It is much harder for a liar to invent details on a reverse timeline.

Another technique is to ask open-ended questions, prompting interviewees to provide as much detail as possible. This technique exploits a liar’s natural aversion to excess detail.

Training individuals to detect lying is a tricky task. Training is extensive and trainees must have adequate practice to simulate real-world experiences.

“The average college student is only 53 percent accurate without training,” Geiselman said. “With abbreviated training, we often make things worse.”

Inadequate training leads individuals to over-estimate their abilities. This limited training often makes individuals worse at lie detection than if they go with their gut reactions.

Richard Robins, psychologist and head of the Personality, Self and Emotion Laboratory at UC Davis, has a theory for why people lie and brag.

“There is a general human need to feel accepted and valued by others,” Robins said. “For narcissistic individuals, bragging is often grossly exaggerated and self-aggrandizing.”

“Narcissistic individuals have an excessive need to have their worth constantly affirmed, which leads them to exaggerate their talents, skills and abilities in an attempt to elicit praise,” he said.

Bragging and pride have more physical clues than lying.

“The pride expression includes head slightly tilted back, expanded posture, arms akimbo with hands on hips and a small smile,” Robins said.

These interview techniques have already been used by the military to interdict insurgent activity in Iraq. Geiselman has also worked with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to develop techniques for interviewing victims of child molestation.

HUDSON LOFCHIE can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

UC Santa Cruz (UCSC) has established a new robotics engineering major under its department of computer engineering. ?Students were able to start enrolling in the major less than a month ago, and at least 11 incoming first-years have declared this major, in addition to the 44 current students that have also declared robotics. ?”I would certainly love to see it help student recruitment rate, and get more students excited about coming to UCSC – they’ll see that we have a broader range of engineering programs,” said Richard Hughey, professor of computer engineering and biomolecular engineering at UCSC. ?

UCSC initially created a robotics concentration in 2007 under the computer engineering major, but desired course load of the concentration exceeded its parent major, creating the need for the separate major.? Hughey, who was essential in the development of this new major, said that the idea for a robotics major strengthened after seeing the growth in the number of computer engineering and electrical engineering students who were forming teams for robot-related projects.? The popular course, “Introduction to Mechatronics,” has been incorporated into the robotics curriculum, a class that Hughey said is “a really intensive design course.”? The course covers robotic movements, control and manipulation. Students spend the quarter designing and testing their robots to meet a challenge on a playing field at the end of the term.? “There’s always some sort of a problem – like getting an empty soda can off of another robot’s head – so sort of like a duel using ping pong balls,” Hughey said.? Other courses for the robotics curriculum include “Intro to Robot Automation” and “Sensing and Sensors.”? Enrique Lavernia, dean of the College of Engineering at UC Davis, does not feel that an official robotics engineering major is necessary at this time.

“We really need to help the students learn how to make decisions, to analyze problems, to be innovative and creative. What we ultimately need to do is to create a ‘renaissance engineer,'” Lavernia said. Lavernia noted that robotics is used extensively by UC Davis professors inside and outside of the classroom. One UC Davis professor exploring robotics is Harry Cheng, professor from the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, who recently had his robot creation patented. Cheng, who also advises the Robotics Club, acknowledges that there is a demand for robotics-related education.

However, he echoes similar sentiments as Lavernia.

“Robotics is an interdisciplinary major. It requires mechanical, electrical and computer engineering science. From the campus point of view, we should think about the collaboration – how to train students with an interdisciplinary background,” Cheng said.

“I would argue that robotics needs to continue to increase to play a role in our degree, so that we can create this ‘renaissance engineer’ that I described. And if the faculty decide we want to do this because we have reasons for this robotics major – absolutely, I would support them,” Lavernia said.? But Kevin Taylor, public relations officer for the Robotics Club, thinks that a robotics major on campus would be beneficial.

“I think it would definitely be attractive to a lot of engineers. What the club has been able to do is put people on teams, to do hands-on activity on engineering and to apply their skills right away. I think a robotics major will allow people to do that in their classes as well,” said Taylor.? The Robotics Club, which re-started in January after being inactive since 2006, recently participated in the world’s largest robot competition, the RoboGames. They built a three kg autonomous robot to battle in a traditional sumo-wrestling event. The club is currently preparing to participate in the IEEE Robotics Contingency Competition in September.

?EVA TAN can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

A new analysis of data from the Galileo spacecraft has found that Jupiter’s violently volcanic moon Io has a moon-wide ocean of magma just below its surface.

The study was conducted by scientists from UCLA, UC Santa Cruz and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The researchers used data from Galileo to measure Io’s ability to carry an electrical current, called its conductivity.

“We were able to infer there was a magma ocean by the conductivity measurement, which tells us the melt fraction [of the rocks on Io],” said the study’s lead author Krishan Khurana, a research geophysicist with UCLA’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and a former co-investigator on Galileo’s magnetometer team.

Melt fractions is the percentage of rock that melts when heated.

Khurana compared the magnetometer technique to metal detectors here on Earth. Metal detectors create electromagnetic waves that pass through a person but reflect off of metal objects such as coins. A sensor detects those reflected waves.

The Galileo spacecraft acted as a big metal detector orbiting Jupiter during the 1990s and early 2000s. A sensor was mounted on a 10-meter extension that was connected to an instrument inside the spacecraft. The electromagnetic (EM) waves came from Jupiter itself due to its magnetic field, similar to the one we experience on Earth. Here on Earth, the magnetic field is what directs compasses to point to the magnetic north pole.

The EM waves from Jupiter would normally pass through most material without change.

“However, if there is a conducting material like a magma ocean, the EM waves from Jupiter can bounce off,” Khurana said. “It reflected a signal around Io which our sensors detected.”

All rocks have at least a little conductivity. The study’s authors inferred that the rocks on Io are partially or completely molten by recent work with ultramafic rocks – the same kind of rocks that make up the molten magma layer beneath Earth’s crust.

“Ultramafic rocks become highly capable of carrying electric current when melted,” said study co-author Xianzhe Jia, an assistant research scientist at the department of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

As rocks are heated, they are better able to conduct electricity so their conductivity goes up. When these ultramafic rocks are heated, the conductivity increases by about 100,000 times, and increases even more when the rocks start to melt.

“The required conductivity is so high that a hot solid interior is unable to explain it,” Jia said. “That led us to test the hypothesis that the source of the strange signature in the magnetic field data was a molten or partially molten version of this kind of rock.”

The recent analysis that indicated Io has a molten ocean was possible with advances in computer models not available ten years ago.

The research helps explain the heavy volcanic activity of Io. Whereas Earth’s volcanism is mostly restricted to a few hot-spots such as the Pacific Ring of Fire, Io has 4,000 active volcanoes distributed evenly around the moon and 100 of them are erupting at any one time. Such violent activity requires an immense amount of heat caused by tidal action – similar to the ocean tides we get on Earth – but requires a specific kind of material in order to erupt.

“If a material is too rigid, it can’t move and heating can’t take place,” Khurana said. “However, if the substance is too low viscosity, like water, it moves around easily without very much heat.”

A molten magma layer is the perfect explanation for this activity, Khurana added.

A magma ocean also helps explain why Io doesn’t have a magnetic field like Earth and Jupiter; the hot magma layer inhibits the very specific movement required to generate a consistent magnetic field.

“Our insight into current conditions on Io may help us understand the structure of the ancient, partially-molten and tidally-heated Moon and perhaps even of tidally-heated super-Earths,” Jia said.

AMY STEWART can be reached at science@theaggie.org.

Four years ago, I felt like I was going to die.

I had an acute case of appendicitis. It felt like someone was stabbing a knife into my belly button. There was lots of pain and lots of barfing.

After a day of agony, surgeons removed my appendix. Today, I’ve just got a faint scar and a gross story.

I only felt like I was going to die, but 200 years ago, I probably would have bitten the dust. A ruptured appendix can cause an infection of the abdominal cavity, leading to a blood infection and death. Appendectomies didn’t gain popularity until a doctor named Reginald H. Fitz published a paper describing the disease back in 1886. (Avoid this paper unless you want lengthy descriptions of gangrene and “fetid, purulent fluid.”)

I like to think about how modern medicine saved me whenever I run across stories about our dangerous modern world.

An article in last week’s Cleveland Daily Banner quoted a doctor who said, “Modern life is hurting us … Our lifestyles have created many of our health problems.”

Indeed, recent headlines tell me that cell phones could cause brain cell damage, chemicals in plastic bottles could cause breast cancer and some babies’ car seats contain carcinogens.

I hate cancer. I want my brain to work, and I want babies to be safe. But I disagree with anyone who thinks the modern world is becoming less and less healthy.

For background information, I decided to talk with Catherine Kudlick, a UC Davis history professor who teaches courses on the history of medicine and public health.

“I am a 22-year-old woman. In previous centuries, what would have been the biggest threats to my health?” I asked her.

“It would of course depend on your social class, race and location,” Kudlick said. “If you were a well-off white woman living comfortably in rural U.S. or Western Europe, a big danger until the 20th century would be childbirth plus infections and diseases – different ones in different historical moments.”

For example, I could have faced the bubonic plague in the Middle Ages or the influenza pandemic of 1919. The East Coast faced a terrible yellow fever outbreak in 1793. Typhoid fever epidemics sprang up in the western world from the times of the ancient Greeks to the early 20th century.

Today, these diseases rarely make headlines in the U.S. We wear bug repellant, we wash our hands and we encourage each other to get flu shots. All these steps help stop diseases.

The idea that bacteria and viruses cause disease wasn’t even accepted until the late 19th century.

“In western medicine until the 19th century, advanced medicine worked from a notion of keeping four basic humors in balance,” Kudlick said. “If someone was hot, you’d cool them down; dry, you’d increase fluids. There was a lot of bleeding using leeches, which often either did nothing or even killed a person.”

Early doctors weren’t idiots. It is a good idea to lower the temperature of a person with a fever, and a patient with dehydration should definitely be given fluids. But I’m glad doctors today also have CT scans, MRI machines, antibiotics and tools for blood analysis.

I believe strongly in the benefits of modern medicine, but Kudlick warned me not to get too Rah-Rah-Y2K.

“I try to wean students away from a March of Progress narrative because you give a false sense of our own era as some great triumph. Sure, in many ways we live far better than before, but there’s a lot of problems we’re not facing because of a false sense of security,” Kudlick said.

A sense of security in the western world can make us forget diseases in other countries. HIV still spreads across the globe, and we still don’t have a cure for malaria. I may be safe from typhoid fever here in California, but 214 people died during a typhoid fever outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2004-05.

HIV and malaria are terrible, but advances in western medicine are also helping less fortunate regions; at UC Davis, there are several labs dedicated to understanding and preventing those diseases.

Medicine in 2011 is more effective than in any other era. Eventually, I will die. But, thanks to modern medicine, it won’t be appendicitis that gets me.

MADELINE McCURRY-SCHMIDT learned a new word while writing this column. Fecalith (noun): a stone formed by fecal waste and a common cause of appendicitis. Madeline has decided that fecaliths were definitely not what caused her appendicitis. If you were Madeline’s surgeon, do not e-mail her at memschmidt@ucdavis.edu.