Girly Music Science

...Okay possibly not the best title, but check out this article published not too long ago; it's called, "'Posh music should equal posh dress': an investigation into the concert dress and physical appearance of female soloists" and it is about how a number of women put on different outfits and played music and what people thought about it.

And if you don't have access to the original, here's a short review.

Anatomy

Now that I'm on my holiday, it seems to be getting more science-y than ever.  But I have always been interested in human anatomical studies, and so this latest offering by Google is worth a mention, I feel.

Boom.

Unfortunately you will need Google Chrome to play around with it.

Science!

"Conclusion: Our results suggest that feet are impenetrable to the alcohol component of vodka. We therefore conclude that the Danish urban myth of being able to get drunk by submerging feet in alcoholic beverages is just that; a myth. The implications of the study are many though."

...yep, THIS is what science should be like. 

(or this:
)

Darkness (or lack thereof)

Have I talked about this yet?

I'll go with no...

So it seems there were some meteors whistling around overhead these past few nights - the Geminids - that I was oblivious of...and if you live anywhere near civilization, you probably did too.  I've got a slide show to catch you up on what went down.

And here's some information on an organization that is less subversive than it sounds - the International Dark-Sky Association - whose mission statement is something I can really get behind ("to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting")...although on the other hand, if it has anything to do with those crappy little LEDs like the one in my bathroom then perhaps not. 

Me, the Migraine, and a Number of Needles

It could just be the acupuncture talking, but it seems to me that ocular migraines - migraines with aura, that is - mark the times in my life that are big transitions.  I've only had two, so it's a small sample size, but they're probably the biggest transitions I've had?  The first was my freshman year of college, first semester, and it was during finals week.  I distinctly remember it being 1am and thinking I was going blind when everything started going fuzzy and spiky and colored, and then black.  And then I puked.  Good times.

Anyway the second migraine with aura I've had was when I moved into this my first apartment.

Oh right, did I mention that I had FIFTEEN NEEDLES stuck in me earlier this evening?  I was a veritable pincushion.  So a couple colleagues at work who are researching migraine had asked a few weeks ago if I wanted to give a hand with something they were working on, and I said yes, thinking it would be something small and immediate, but it turned out to be sitting in a machine while being zapped with electric current being channeled through some titanium pins firmly lodged in my skin.  Always something new.  Actually, I didn't even know I was getting any acupuncture until earlier this week, and then I didn't realize I was having multiple acupoints done until they were inserting the third needle...

Dramatics aside though, I'm glad I signed up to be their lab rat...I think it's good for researchers to submit themselves to what they intend to submit their subjects to (generally), and this definitely gave me a better idea of what acupuncture is and what sorts of sensations it evokes.  I don't think I would necessarily choose getting poked over taking drugs to fix a headache, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating...and I have a thing about needles.  It was strangely calming...possibly because of the rush of endorphins, possibly because, like a moth mounted in a display case, it was painful to try and move.  Either way, it definitely gives me some more motivation for researching how such techniques affect people with chronic pain.  Which, conveniently, is what I'm doing.

There are photos of me as a pincushion but they're on the acupuncturist's phone so you will have to wait for the unnerving of skewered me.

Eat Your Veg

There are a lot of crazy and exciting theories about the course of human evolution...'we started walking on two feet because we were trying to wade around in marshes' and 'we got bigger brains when we moved into cold weather' are classics...

But my new favorite theory is that people really got started on the road to success when they began to cook food over fire.  Not just any food, either...we're talking tubers!  You would think it would be meat, wouldn't you.  Apparently though figuring out how to roast root vegetables allowed early humans access to all sorts of delicious and nutritious things that can't be got at too easily without fire.  And some tongs, presumably.

Not long after evidence starts showing up that people are eating cooked tubers, brains get bigger, populations increase, and women grow to approximately the size of men...this last one is key to changes in human dynamics (they tell me), because in species where females are smaller than males, polygynous is the rule and societies are run by an alpha male.  When females and males are approximately the same size, however, pair bonding is prevalent and a more cooperative social system tends to flourish.

My guess is that the ladies figured out the fire and veg business while the men were off 'hunting' (or whatever they're calling it these days), and then traded their cooking skills for cooperation with the other household duties.  Prometheus and his fennel-stalk...so close and yet so far.

Ohhh Wikipedia, how you never cease to entertain:

"The beard-second is a unit of length inspired by the light-year, but used for extremely short distances such as those in nuclear physics. The beard-second is defined as the length an average beard grows in one second. Kemp Bennet Kolb defines the distance as exactly 100 Ångströms, (i.e. 10 nanometers) while Nordling and Österman's Physics Handbook has it half the size at 5 nanometers. Google Calculator supports the beard-second for unit conversions using the latter conversion factor."

...etc.

Sowwy

Ooh sorry I was mean and Rickrolled you last week...I myself fell prey to that cruel ploy but meant to provide the actual link the day after.  But then I forgot.

Still, better late than never???  Here's the Munsell Hue Test, for real.

By the way, I wasn't lying when I said I have killer color vision.

Munsell Hue Test

A little something different from that Myers-Briggs thing I keep going back to...

This time, rather than measuring your intelligence or personality, quantify and tabulate your perceptual prowess!

I don't want to make you feel bad by reporting my scores...but let's just say I have the color vision of a hawk.  (Hawks can see in color, right?)

If you're jealous, comfort yourself with the fact that, sans spectacles, everything resolves itself into spectacularly-hued blobs.  And if you do poorly, you can always blame it on your monitor display.

Science Films (Really!)

It started out with sitting down to go through The Life Aquatic a few evenings ago, and then somehow I ended up watching all of David Attenborough's The Life of...series(es...Birds, Mammals, etc.).  Plus, to make matters worse, I got forwarded an interesting video link at work of an MIT seminar I had missed...how the brain thinks about the mind, takes me right back to 11th grade with Mr Robertson...and somehow that led to *science films* (cue spooky music).

But honestly, these things really seem worth watching...and also seem to be "science films" (as we know them from biology class at least...so don't let that scare you off, my non-science-nerds) in only the most liberal of definitions.  But grrrrr apparently they aren't public domain and I would have to go to NYC...a month ago...to have seen any of them.  WHY...well anyway, here is the site, and if you care to spend some time investigating it and end up finding an actual video, please inform moi.  I am particularly looking for this year's winners (the people have spoken and I believe in the people): so that's "Marius Borodine," "Skhizein," and "An Eyeful of Sound" (synesthesia yayyy!)...but "Cold and Dry" might be worthwhile as well. Anyway.

An Average Day In The Lab

...and honestly, I am only exaggerating the teensiest bit here.

Convoluted Relations

This graphic isn't the easiest to read - there are certainly prettier ones out there - but if you can figure the thing out, it is fairly informative.  Generations, clearly, are the rows, while columns more or less illustrate degree of relatedness.  For some reason, female relatives in the direct line are circles.  What's most interesting - aside from clarifying that whole "first-cousin-twice-removed" issue - is that the percentage of genetic relatedness is included in red.  Interesting that those things match up.

Horrorshow

By some strange coincidence, I have found on the St Andrew's website this terrifying "Face Transformer"...be prepared to scream like a girl.

Here's the original photo of me (several years ago...it was a dark, navel-gazing, emo phase).

 Ick.  That's all behind me now.  Thank goodness.

And now...morphed into a BABYHEAD:

...It's like a vicious reversal of 'Mommy What Will I Look Like?'  Or (nerd) that scene in Harry Potter with the guy with the babyhead.  Remember that..?

And furthermore, me as a MAN:

The sexiest man you'll never meet.  Right?  Riiight?  ...Bahaha.  This dude will give you nightmares, I guarantee it. 

And lastly, I'm ASIAN.

Sort of, not really at all.  But those people at St Andrews are really disturbed.  I could - but chose not to - transform myself into an old person, a Botticelli, a Manga character, and 'Drunk.'

Go on, give it a whirl.

Why

...is this not the topic of my life's research?

Here's Looking at Whoclid?

An excerpt from a book I'm interested in reading by Alex Bellos.  About math.  But don't let that turn you off.

The End Is Nigh

Have I posted about the giant volcano that is the entire Western US that is due to blow and when it blows will cover the Earth in apocalyptic doom?  No?  Well I first heard about it in Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, but it crops up every now and again in National Geographic and so on...and one day, it shall crop up and destroy life as we know it.  Enjoy!

PS: my computer has gone to that big warehouse in the sky (sadness) so I might be a bit erratic - yet again - in my posting for the next few days.  Don't be too distraught!

Striking Out

Something new for me to be freaked out about...

How far (and how high) can a snake jump?  Taking out the semantic question of whether creatures without legs are able to jump.

On less-than-credible web forums, I am getting anywhere from a third to twice the snake's length.  Depending on species.  This is not precise enough for me.

On the other hand, I don't intend to be anywhere remotely near to a snake, so I suppose this is a moot point?  If worse comes to worse, however...I'm now reading on a governmental site that one shouldn't try to cut/suck poison from a bite wound.  Now I don't know what to do...

Phew!

Did you knowwwwwwww...

That body odor is an evolutionary deterrent against inbreeding and incest?  I believe the founding study indicating this can be found in a paper by Wedekind et al. (1995) entitled "MHC-dependent mate preferences in humans." If you don't feel like reading up, essentially what happens is that women prefer the b.o. of men who are less genetically similar to themselves. (The study is, however, pretty interesting, both in specific conclusions and inferences as well as in experimental design, so if you've got the time, do a quick Google Scholar search.) Intriguingly, this preference seems to reverse when women are on birth control, a fact which some scientists interpret by saying that the hormonal changes induced mimic pregnancy, which is a time where human females benefit most from being in a protected family group. ...At this point, the feminists are starting to take up arms, so I'll just stop here with a warning about defining motives behind apparent evolutionary trends.

Anyway, if you're interested in human sexual attraction, genetics, and evolutionary science, check out some of these related articles by Hedrick and Loeschcke 1996, Herz and Cahill (1997), Gangestad and Thornhill (1998), or do a search for more recent literature on PubMed or Google Scholar, or if you're feeling curious but overwhelmed, here's a decent (and much less scientific) introductory article.

In Space, Brett...In Space.

(That would be a quote from Flight of the Conchords, if you were curious.)

Now here's another photo of space.  On the right is the Keyhole Nebula...and smaller, on the left, the Finger of God.

Everything I Know About Geology

(Well practically)

Sedentary - loose sediment which gets compacted together to form ROCKS.

Igneous - ROCKS made from crystals that are formed from cooling lava/magma (not sure which).

Metamorphic - any kind of ROCK which then gets buried, boiled, and squeezed.

...So anyone have any additional insights?