Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

All they have to do is read about alcohol, and they're off and running. Check it out:

Exposure to Alcohol-Related Words Increase Men's Sex Drive

Forget Viagra, maybe all guys really have to do is carry around a few flashcards with "keg" and "liquor" on them.

Hmm, the latter would be best, I think.

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You all may remember a story a while back where a study showed that alcohol reduces the risk of becoming mentally impaired!

Well, now they've done a study with mice, demonstrating that alcohol can help stimulate the growth of new brain cells!

Moderate alcohol consumption over a relatively long period of time can enhance the formation of new nerve cells in the adult brain. The new cells could prove important in the development of alcohol dependency and other long-term effects of alcohol on the brain. The findings are published by Karolinska Institutet.

I propose we go to human testing right away.

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Those invaluable Mars rovers have done it again, this time capturing Martian Dust Devils on video!

"This is the best look we've ever gotten of the wind effects on the martian surface as they are happening," said Dr. Mark Lemmon, a rover team member and atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, College Station.

Spirit, operated from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., has been using its navigation camera to routinely check for dust devils. It began seeing dust devils last month in individual frames from the camera. Lemmon said, "We're hoping to learn about how dust is kicked up into the atmosphere and how the wind is interacting with the surface. It's exciting that we now have a systematic way of capturing dust devils in movies rather than isolated still images."

And before you ask, yes I did download the whole movie file, just like when I downloaded the mp3 file of what wind sounds like on Titan, because I am, in fact, a deviant geek.



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Check this out:

Qatar to replace camel riders with robots

Apparently out there, camel racing is big business, but there's a lot of problems with children forced to be jockeys and underfed to keep their weight down.

So what's the obvious solution? That's right, robot camel jockeys.

In Qatar, ruling sheiks have responded to calls for banning the use of boy jockeys by embracing robots as the best solution.

Sheik Abdullah bin Saud, the Qatari official in charge of the project, said the plan is to keep developing the robot until it is ready to take over.

"Improve the speed, the weight, the aerodynamics, to reach the ultimate goal of completely phasing out children used as jockeys," Sheik Abdullah said.

How do they work? Well...

A camel handler follows the rider in a vehicle and uses a joystick on the laptop-sized remote to issue four instructions: forward, backward, sideways and whip action. The robot, in turn, uses those commands to drive the camel.

The 60-pound robot is also equipped with a global positioning system satellite beacon and shock absorbers for the rough ride.

To prevent camels from rejecting the robots, handlers spray their jerseys with traditional perfume used by trainers.

And these robots are actually moving up in the pack!

"We're 10 seconds slower than the fastest time recorded for a 5-kilometer race," he said.

The one thing I'm still wondering though, is what all those kids will do once they don't have to race camels anymore? And what about the poor camel-racing teams that can't afford to hire the robot jockeys? I smell a Hollywood feel-good sports movie coming on!

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Ligers and Wolphins and Tigons, Oh My!

All real animals, believe it or not.

A wolphin is half-whale, half dolphin, and not only do they exist, but they aren't sterile, like mules are. This one actually gave birth to a living calf, the calf being half-dolphin, half-wolphin, or three-quarters dolphin, one-quarter whale.

Check out this picture of the momma wolphin with her two parents. Top to bottom, we have the papa whale, the momma dolphin and their wolphin offspring.



And maybe you thought that a Liger (Half-Lion, Half-Tiger) was just an imaginary creature, "bred for its skills in magic." But no, they are in fact real creatures. Check out this one born in a Russian zoo!



And they're friggin' huge! Check out this pic!


But a liger is not just any hybrid of lion and tiger. The animal is only a liger if it is the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. Swap them around, and you have a Tigon, which are generally darker in color and much smaller.

And there are RULES about how to name them! For example, if a female tigon mates with a male tiger, the offspring is a Ti-Tigon. If a female liger mates with a male tiger, it is a Ti-Liger. You can also have Li-Tigons and Ti-Tigons. You can read all about them all here, including jaglions and leopons!

Of course, with all the modern advances in genetic engineering, soon we as a society will have to confront the tricky issue of animal-human hybrids. However, as PolySciFi points out, there might just be some genuine boons to be found in this brave new world.

You may remember that Australia is having some trouble with cane toads. Well, you too can do your part to save the planet by buying a purse made out of a poisonous toad.


Go on! You know you want one!

Also available: Roo Poo!

Yes, it is exactly what you think it is.

Ladies, make sure you check out the Koala Poo Earrings!
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Over at the Science Blog, they've got a nice article up about revisions to theories about the interior of a black hole.

On that note, here is a little helpful information, should you ever find yourself falling into a black hole.

Step 1: Don't fall in!

Ever since black holes were first theorized, irresponsible science fiction authors and filmmakers have popularized the notion that falling into a black hole is somehow "cool". This is largely attributable to the theory that falling into a black hole will lead to exciting adventures in some new universe or dimension. While that is perhaps a possibility, the odds are that any enjoyment you might derive from said adventures would be lessened substantially by your being very very dead.

As such, it is best to avoid falling into the black hole using any means possible. Furthermore, thrill-seekers should be strongly discouraged. While it is true that escape is theoretically possible from any point outside the "event horizon"*, the closer you get, the more speed will be required. Reckless hole-jockeys trying to buzz the event horizon may find that their ship-manufacturer's mileage statistics were somewhat exaggerated.

* Note: The "event horizon" is an imaginary border that, once crossed, nothing, not even light, can leave. As opposed to the film Event Horizon, that once seen, will make everyone leave.

Generally speaking, accidentally stumbling across supermassive objects is not a common problem during space travel, (in fact, the opposite is often true,) but the danger with black holes, is that their tendency to pull in everything, including light, makes them somewhat difficult to see. As such, any well-equipped starship should be fitted with X-ray and radiation scopes, in order to avoid stumbling across them in the first place.

Step 2: Well, now you've gone and done it. What to expect.

Once you have either crossed the event horizon or expended all your fuel in a futile attempt to escape, you might as well relax, because you're done for.

There are a number of things that you will wish you had done. Paths not taken and so on, but none of these things would have made any difference in your forthcoming demise, except perhaps to make you slightly more comfortable for the short time you have remaining.

As you move ever closer to the black hole, you will accelerate faster and faster, approaching the speed of light. As space begins moving faster than the speed of light, it will essentially trade places with time. The relativistic effects, combined with the gravitational effects will make this somewhat disorienting. As such, it would be best to go in either entirely sober, or extremely drunk.

Then, just to screw with you, space and time will exchange places again, producing a bubble of normal space contained within a layer that is, scientifically speaking, fucking crazy.

At this point, your imminent death will take one of two likely forms, depending on the size of the black hole.*

* Note: for the purposes of this article, we are discussing only the larger black holes ("Big" black holes) as opposed to quantum black holes ("Teeny" black holes). For information on quantum black holes, see someone who cares more.

A smaller black hole, say, the mass of several suns, will kill you by means of tidal forces, otherwise known as "spaghettification". As you approach the central singularity, a point of infinite density, your feet will experience higher gravity than your head, stretching you out like spaghetti. This, of course, assumes that you approach the singularity feet first. In actuality, any part of your body which is facing the singularity will experience higher gravity than the parts facing away. Males are urged to avoid facing directly toward the singularity.

A supermassive black hole, however, will have enough mass surrounding the singularity that the tidal forces will be less of a concern. Instead, the mass itself, in the form of super-heated plasma, will roast you alive. So best to dress in layers.

Eventually, your remains will reach the singularity itself. You'll be dead by this point, but if the outcome of your spacely, (no sprocket jokes please) body concerns you, basically, it will be compacted into an infinitesimal point, like one of those machines that crushes cars into little cubes. It will stay there for all eternity or until the universe ends, whichever happens first. In theory, that would make the black hole an impressively permanent grave marker, however, due to the relativistic effects of your journey past the event horizon, all your friends and family will have died millions of years ago, making it less likely that anyone will visit. Likewise, any flowers that are left will either themselves be crushed into the singularity, or stolen by cheapskates.

So that's it really, and yes, I am a huge geek. However, I would like to point out here that I've made almost all of this up myself by Hitchhiker's Guide rules, meaning that much of it is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate. I am not an astrophysist, though I sometimes play one in chatrooms. Anyone who suffers personal damages as the result of inaccuracies in this essay is eligible for a hefty cash compensation package, however, they will have to provide proof that they have already been crushed into a singularity.

Parents Give Ugly Kids Less Attention

A researcher at the University of Alberta has shown that parents are more likely to give better care and pay closer attention to good-looking children compared to unattractive ones.
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Harrell's team of researchers observed parents and their two to five-year-old children for 10 minutes each, noting if the child was buckled into the grocery-cart seat, and how often the child wandered more than 10 feet away. The researchers independently graded each child on a scale of one to 10 on attractiveness.

I can just see the "The More You Know..." campaign now. "Remember, ugly babies need attention too. If they fall out of their grocery cart seats it'll just make things worse."

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Study finds no link between cell phones and brain tumors

A new study has found no link between use of cell phones and the risk of developing a brain tumor. The study is published in the April 12 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The Danish study questioned 427 people with brain tumors and 822 people without brain tumors about their cell phone use. The study found no increased risk for brain tumors related to cell phone use, frequency of use, or number of years of use.

Phew, that's a relief. Now I can focus all my mental energy on changing lanes without dropping my call or my cheeseburger.
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That's what an Australian member of Parliament is suggesting. They've got a serious problem with cane toads down there, and in an attempt to reduce the population, David Tollner is advocating that people go out and beat the toads to death with cricket bats and golf clubs.

"If people could be encouraged to do it rather than discouraged the better the chance will be of stopping the cane toads arriving in Darwin and other parts of northern Australia."

Gives a little irony to the name "cane toads" doesn't it? This approach, according to some, is a little inhumane. On NPR this morning, one reporter described it as "rather bloody and horrible". Animal welfare groups are suggesting that people put the toads in their freezers instead.

So how did this terrible scourge of cane-toads get introduced into Australia in the first place? Well, they were brought over to control the population of a terrible scourge of cane beetles.

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Got a couple more science tidbits today...

No accounting for taste...

Over at the New York Times, they've got an article about new artificial flavoring chemicals being tried as artificial flavors in food products.

A company called Senomyx has got some new chemicals that were synthesized specifically to target certain taste receptors on the tongue, making the taste much more powerful than previous artificial flavorings, thus requiring less of the chemical in the product. For example, a Senomyx sweetener would only require, perhaps, 1 part per million artificial sweetener, whereas conventional non-sugar sweeteners require more like 200 - 500 parts per million.

These new flavorings could be used in a number of future products in order to reduce sugar, salt, and MSG content without reducing flavor, yet because of the very tiny amounts required, they will not be listed in the Nutrition Label's Ingredients section. (Instead, they will just be lumped in with "artificial flavorings".) Also, the tiny amounts require less FDA testing than chemicals that require proportionally larger amounts. This could be bad, depending on your feelings about artificial flavorings, though odds are, if you're a real organi-freak, you wouldn't be buying anything with "artificial flavors" anyway. (Note: I use the term 'organi-freak' with the utmost respect and affection. Some of my best friends are organic.)

That said, if we're talking about amounts of 1 part per million, odds are that, unless you take the Michael Jackson surgical mask route, you're inhaling more harmful chemicals than than that during your morning commute. So, while adding more artificial flavors to our nation's food isn't necessarily good for us, neither are the amounts of sugar, salt and MSG we're eating. So maybe the balance will be toward the positive. Either way, something to think about when you see "artificial flavors" on the label of your next can of soup.

Don't buzz the tower!

Over at The Science Blog, they've got a piece up about Remote Control Fruit Flies!

Apparently, with a little clever genetic engineering and some carefully programed computers, scientists have created a strain of fruit flies that can be made to jump, beat their wings and fly on command when targeted with specially pulsed laser beams.

The science of it is pretty cool as well, though too complex to really go into here, but the image is just pretty damn cool, don't you think? Imagine being able to zoom your own little bluebottle housefly around the room. I'd buy one.

Then again, this sort of thing isn't exactly brand new. Ever hear about Robo-Roach?.

If they drink cheap tequila, does that make them cannibals?

Scientists Get Worms Drunk

Supposedly, it's in the interest of fighting alcoholism, but one can only hope that the worms were smart enough to watch their own drinks to avoid getting roofied.

Anyway, the researchers apparently gave alcohol to a lot of different worms, to see which ones got the drunkest, then analyzing the genetic differences between them, in order to determine which genes are responsible for worm-hammeredness.

Your tax-dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen! And thank God, because the last thing this country needs is a drunken-worm gap!

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There's a recent article in the New Scientist that talks about a new patent Sony has received, thus taking the "first step towards a real-life Matrix."

IMAGINE movies and computer games in which you get to smell, taste and perhaps even feel things. That's the tantalising prospect raised by a patent on a device for transmitting sensory data directly into the human brain - granted to none other than the entertainment giant Sony.

The technique suggested in the patent is entirely non-invasive. It describes a device that fires pulses of ultrasound at the head to modify firing patterns in targeted parts of the brain, creating "sensory experiences" ranging from moving images to tastes and sounds. This could give blind or deaf people the chance to see or hear, the patent claims.

I hasten to add, however, this excerpt from the same article:

Elizabeth Boukis, spokeswoman for Sony Electronics, says the work is speculative. "There were not any experiments done," she says. "This particular patent was a prophetic invention. It was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."

Now, on the face of it, this is pretty interesting, but it raises, in my mind, a few questions/comments.

1. First of all, according to the article, they haven't even built a device or done any experiments. It's just the idea for a theoretical technique. So the question is, how the hell do you receive a patent for something you haven't even built yet? Does that mean they can just sit on the idea and then as soon as someone actually builds the thing, Sony steals it out from under them on the basis of patent infringement or what? Maybe I should apply for a patent for something cool, like genetically engineered pygmy elephants or a talking can-opener. Then, if anyone ever actually builds one, they'll have to pay me royalties.

2. A "real-life Matrix"? I tell you, it's a sad state of affairs when the SF literacy of our country is such that The Matrix is the best example they can come up with for this. It was not the first, nor the best example of this sort of technology in science fiction. Most mainstream/popular and most recent, perhaps, but that's about it. Besides, if they want to reference a movie, the gizmo they are describing is way more like the stuff used in eXistenZ and Strange Days, than the Matrix.

3. The whole question may be moot, because since they haven't even built a prototype yet, there's no way to know that this thing wouldn't give people seizures or brain tumors or something. I'm all for pie-in-the-sky speculation (Loads of fun!) but I refer back to question 1. How can they issue a patent for something that doesn't even exist yet?

4. If you want an excellent example of high-quality science fiction that deals with a lot of these types of issues, as well as cyborgs, self-aware AI's, etc., then check out Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. Now available on DVD and airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.

Government satellites will be watching.

Ready to geek out? Then head over to Google maps.

Yeah, yeah, you've probably seen it already by now as a slightly slicker alternative to Yahoo maps or Mapquest, but check out a tiny little link up in the upper right corner.

Search an addres, then click on "Satellite" to see arial photographs of your chosen location! It's pretty cool.

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According to a new study:

Dandruff Adds to Air Pollution

Aerosols, tiny particles in the air, are widely studied because they are an important factor in regulating climate, variously absorbing heat to warm the air and reflecting sunlight to cool it.

But the amount of cellular material - bacteria, plant fragments, spores, fungi and so forth - had been thought to be only a small proportion compared with mineral dusts, clay and sea salt.

Now, Ruprecht Jaenicke of the Institute for Atmospheric Physics at Mainz University in Germany has studied air samples and discovered that biological materials can range up to 25 percent of aerosols in some areas and as high as 40 percent in others. His findings are reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

The source of many aerosols has been unexplained, Jaenicke said, and this could provide the answer.

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The new finding means researchers should take biological materials seriously in climate modeling, in cloud physics and in hygienic questions such as allergies, Jaenicke said.

So do us all a favor, will you? Get yourself some Head & Shoulders and save the planet.

(P.S. It actually wouldn't be the first time that shampoo saved the world. In Evolution, David Duchovny and Orlando Jones used shampoo to poison the giant alien blob-thing. Who knew shampoo would have so many uses?)

Nope, don't need 'em!

Over at Wired news, I recently spotted a fascinating article:

The Blind Fragging the Blind

It's all about the increasing numbers of computer games being made for blind people! Yes, that's right. Computer games being designed relying only on sound with no graphics whatsoever.

Most of these games run on ordinary PCs and are often joystick- or keyboard-controlled. The player dons a pair of headphones, and elements of the game are delivered in stereo to help players shoot aliens on the left or avoid a tank on the right.

Arcade-style audio games like Galaxica use the game's familiar beeps and bleeps to help players shoot aliens, while newer action games include opening scores, voice characters and elaborate sound effects.

Audio games are limited in visuals, so programmers must find creative ways to use sound to signify everything from attacking helicopters to the kind of surface upon which a character is walking.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a pretty cool idea, and not just because it just provides a way for blind people to waste their time on pointless nonproductive activities, just like sighted people do.




A few of the links in the Wired article didn't work well for me, but at a couple of them, you can download some of the simpler games for free.

For example, GMA Games has a free download of a sound-only Minesweeper game. Trust me, much harder than the normal kind. They also have Yahtzee and Solitaire, though I haven't tried those yet.

Then, over at BSC Games, they have some free action-style games.

Both sites, (and I'm sure there are others,) also have more complex games, though those aren't free. Anyway, you should give them a "look", because it's really interesting to try them. They are pretty disorienting at first, but once you get the concept down, it can be pretty fun.

Then there's the fact, (that I would NEVER take advantage of, by the way,) that since they don't have graphics, nobody could tell by looking at your screen that you're playing a game.

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