Spreading ribs help snakes fly

I use "fly" loosely here to mean the ability to remain in the air for a long time without plummeting to the ground, so I guess the technical term for the aerial abilities of the Chrysopelea genus would be "glide." Either way, these snakes have been all over my news feed, so I decided it would be a good idea to share them here. A study printed in the February 1 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology examined the aerodynamics behind the paradise glider in particular, which can "fly" on average 10 meters when starting from 10 meters in the air; one of the researchers measured a 21 meter glide.

Picture from Alan Couch on Wikimedia Commons under CC Attribution 2.0

What they found was that these snakes, which are native to southeast Asia, spread their ribs when they glide to create lift. It's similar to the way that sugar gliders or flying squirrels spread their limbs to expose their flaps of skin. They also actively jump from their branches using their tails as anchors, and this allows better control over where they're gliding. These factors combine with whipping their bodies, a maneuver that the researchers think functions like a bike racer drafting off the racer in front, for maximum lift.

Aerodynamics tests were conducted with a 3D model of the flattened snake, and even though it's not sleek and smooth as a stealth jet, it still creates enough lift to carry the snake the average 10 meters. After gliding, the snakes' ribs return to their normal position, and they look just like normal, round snakes. While this seems like an intriguing aircraft idea, I'm not sure that having retractable or foldable wings would soften the landing much.

A sad day for salamanders

I consider myself lucky to be able to own one of my favorite animals as a pet. While some people pine after owning a panda or giraffe, I have two axolotls of my own that I get to… well, I can't really play with them, but I can pet them and let them nibble on my hands and otherwise interact with them on a fairly frequent basis. Most of the time I forget that they're technically wild animals because of the huge network of captive axolotl owners and breeders.

This is why I was surprised to see this article from the Telegraph saying axolotls may have gone extinct in the wild. They're pretty common in captivity, and I knew they were endangered in the wild because of limited habitat in the lakes around Mexico City, but I didn't realize their situation had become this dire. Studies from the Mexico Academy of Sciences showed a huge decline from 6000 axolotls per square kilometer in 1998 to 100 per square kilometer in 2008.

Self-generated graph from the article data. This is pretty scary.

Technically the extinction hasn't been confirmed yet, as researchers will begin a survey in February to see if they can find more, but the winter is prime breeding season (as I found out the hard way), so they'll have to act quickly so they can find these animals while it's still cold. Makeshift axolotl shelters have also been constructed in Lake Xochimilco with plants, rocks, and clean water to protect the animals from invasive carp and low water quality.

The joke in my circles is that my two kept breeding because they had to rebuild the population, but having brother and sister as the replenishing pair would be horrible genetics, so I think the researchers should stick to finding the wild ones.

Biohacking lab opens in Austria

As someone who lives in a green and crunchy town but has also taken a good amount of biology, I'm often stuck in an unforgiving place in terms of GMOs. I think they're fine, and the science behind them is not only solid but extremely useful, but a lot of people here think they're the devil's spawn. Europe has been proactive about banning foods made from GMOs and has done so for several years (a policy I feel is a fear monger rather than a protective service, but I digress), but the Ministry of Health in Austria has agreed to  allow access to Open BioLab, a one-year-old lab space dedicated to independent tinkering.

In Austria, people need permits to do genetic experimentation outside of a professional setting, but even universities don't allow biohacking, so Open BioLab provides a space for people interested in biotechnology to do more creative work. The lab features a homemade bioreactor made of spare computer parts for growing GM bacteria, and the founders (who are biology students in the city of Graz) hope to produce bacteria that can make Taq polymerase, a crucial but very expensive ingredient for amplifying DNA.

Of course, the USA isn't as afraid of GMOs (yet…) and has been playing with them in the lab to do many things, such as producing indigo for dyeing jeans and making them smell pretty as an indicator that they've finished growing. Because who wouldn't want a banana scented bacterium?

DIY housing gone high-tech

Two innovations that have been getting a decent amount of press lately include 3D printing and tiny houses. The former can (in theory) produce anything you can design on your CAD software of choice, including chocolate (and dragons…), while the latter is a movement that is building momentum as people are becoming more efficient with the space they have, like this 100 square meter house designed by a firm in Madrid. The natural next step? Combining the two: Wikihouse.

Alright, so printing plastic bricks individually would take forever and a day, but their plan is pretty clever:

Picture courtesy of Wikihouse under Creative Commons

1. Design your house using Google SketchUp, use one of Wikihouse's designs, or combine the two using the Wikihouse plugin on SketchUp.
2. Find a CNC mill (these are large, automated machines that cut materials based on CAD input, so basically a 3D printer for wood) or a machine shop to give the designs to.
3. Partake in some massive-scale Ikea-style setup. One of the Wikihouse prototypes uses a wedge and peg system, borrowed from classical Korean architecture, to stick the pieces together. 
4. Install other house necessities like plumbing, electrical, walls, etc.

While access to these kinds of resources might be limited, I like the premise because it allows homebuilders to design exactly what they want and have a lot more control over what is built. The company also acknowledges that the process still requires lawyers, contractors, and the like to make sure everything is safe and legal, but it's a good start.

And the verdict is...

Rorschach!

The famous ink blot tests have now been brought to the video game world by the lovely people at the Global Game Jam site at my school. "Rorschach," for which a friend of mine was lead developer, creates patterns that players have to recreate as a mirror image (like the test), and then they have to analyze the last test. The traditional psychiatric test reflects the theme pretty well, plus it's a cool idea. At the bottom of the page, there's a link to download the zip file containing the game.

Here are some frames from the game's site.

Title screen. I like the design on this one.

This one is delightfully creepy.

And the final result.

Our site also created another game based on the changing dynamic of the American family by having players match up families of various ethnicities and orientations. You can see the full list of the 4177 games submitted here.

Exclusive event coverage

For this week's issue of our school paper, I wrote an article about the Global Game Jam and how it's being held here for the first time. GGJ is an international event in which people gather at jam sites at universities and such around the world to produce a game based on a given theme in about 48 hours. I've been told that the themes are typically weird but workable, like the image of an ouroboros or the sound of a heartbeat; this year's theme is the quote "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

I decided to stop by our jam site on the comp sic floor to say hi and check out what everyone was up to, which honestly wasn't terribly exciting; as such, liveblogging the jam was out. A friend of mine was testing out code, while others at the table were making sprites, creating theme music, and building the clock for the timing aspect of the game. I like the premise of their game, but as to prevent any possible plagiarism, I'll wait until they release it tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's my article (official link here):

The appreciation for video game culture is ingrained deep in the Ithaca College community. Clubs such as the Gamer Symphony Orchestra, IC Gamers and IC Game Developers embrace student interest in the music, the creation or the playing of video games. This weekend, IC Game Developers is sponsoring the college’s first event as part of the Global Game Jam, a meet in which teams around the world gather at universities and other locations to create games in 48 hours. The college’s Global Game Jam will take place at 5 p.m. Jan. 24 on the third floor of Williams Hall.  

Born from other similar events and the International Game Developers Association, the Global Game Jam was founded in 2008. According to globalgamejam.org, more than 1,600 participants in 23 countries produced 370 games for the first event in January 2009. In 2013, more than 3,000 games were produced by participants at 309 jam sites in 63 countries.  

Each year, participants form small groups at jam sites, which are typically chosen for their access to technology support and security, and collaboratively create a game based on a theme the organization chooses. Past themes have included “extinction” in 2011, the image of a snake eating its own tail in 2012 and the sound of a heartbeat in 2013. While students at the college have joined the Global Game Jam in previous years, junior Kate Wareham, president of IC Game Developers, is hosting the event on campus for the first time this year.  

“Last year, me and a bunch of the other kids in the group went to New York [City] to do it, and it was really cool,” Wareham said. “We met a lot of cool people, and we got to work with them to make a game happen.”  

Junior Jordan Riley, who got involved with the IC Game Developers during his freshman year, decided to join the Global Game Jam after hearing about past experiences from other club members. He said creating a local jam site in Ithaca also provides more opportunities for newcomers to participate.  

“I think this might have a decent draw-in for other people on the college campus that have a little bit of interest in game development and might have never really set foot into making them but may actually find that they have a talent,” Riley said.  

The event begins with keynote speakers in the field of game development. This year’s speakers include Jenova Chen, co-founder of thatgamecompany and creator of the critically acclaimed game “Journey.” After the keynote speeches and theme announcement, teams have until 3 p.m. Jan. 26 to produce their games, and each team presents its game to other groups at their jam site.  

As a veteran game jam participant and faculty adviser to the IC Game Developers, computer science professor Nathan Prestopnik is organizing this year’s jam site with Wareham. He said while some of the games produced at the Global Game Jam have attracted attention outside the development community, their creators often don’t aim to release the games into the marketplace. Instead, they are shared among friends, which further promotes the collaborative goals of the event.  

One of the Global Game Jam’s sponsors, GameSprout, is a game development site that complements the collaborative spirit of the event by allowing developers to upload their demos, art, music and more for playtesting and feedback from their peers. Jill Sciulli, director of marketing of GameSprout, said the partnership with the jam is mutually beneficial.  

“Global Game Jam participants could get the experience of putting their games on GameSprout and seeing them grow,” Sciulli said. “In return, GameSprout would have all the exposure to all of these game developers.”  

Global Game Jam’s organizational mission is to educate people about game development and get them interested through this event. No experience is necessary, and while registering ahead of the event is helpful, anyone can stop by and check out the progress of the teams.  

“My main hope is for everyone to have a good time,” Wareham said. “It’s for people to get together, see what game development is like, try it out. Some people may even find that that’s what they’re interested in. I mean, if I hadn’t tried it out, I definitely wouldn’t have known if that was what I wanted to do or not.”

An update on the kids

As mentioned in my first post of the year, I embarked on a lovely adventure of raising axolotl eggs. And by lovely I mean that everything went wrong. Due to the shipping schedules being messed up by snow and holidays, I didn't get the food for the hatchlings until they had been in the fridge for a week; naturally, the extended cold killed all of the ones that had hatched. I was able to find a few unhatched ones that survived (I think the end count was 10), so I put those in a Tupperware container and fed them baby brine shrimp that I had to raise myself.

I think natural selection was reversed in my case because the healthy ones would've been the ones to hatch early, so the fridge actually killed the good ones. Some of the survivors were a little defective swimming, but they were also small. They were about ½ inch or so, so it was hard to determine exact color genetics, but I think there was one white one (albino or leucistic), one golden albino (these ones have light eyes so it looks like they don't have any), and some that were either wild or melanoid.

And as the use of past tense may suggest, our house got too cold the last Monday I was home and all of the hatchlings died. It wasn't great, but I wouldn't have had the time and space to raise them all anyway.

But never fear; I had the kids together in their transport container for about a half-hour before I decided to separate them for the trip back, and apparently that was enough because there was another batch of eggs in my tank this past Sunday. Those are currently in another Tupperware container on my dresser, so we'll see how that batch comes out.

Chromosome X

As addressed in the intro of this article by the New York Times, the coining of the name for the X chromosome is fitting for such a mysterious biological component. While inherited like the rest of the chromosomes (one from mom, one from dad), its products set it aside from the others, and research is showing that it's a lot more complex than we might have thought.

X (and Y) chromosomes are the bundles of DNA responsible for determining one's biological sex: in humans, XX usually means female, and XY usually means male, with other combos of chromosomes and genes to change that up from time to time. The two chromosomes, unlike other pairs, don't contain the same genes, and as such, XX individuals have to deal with having two times the genes that an XY individual would have. This is accomplished by X inactivation, in which a cell (seemingly arbitrarily) picks one of the two Xs to condense into an unusable state. When a cell divides, the daughter cells retain the same pattern of condensation, producing what is called mosaicism.

Picture from Michael Bodega on Wikimedia Commons by public domain release

As you can see in this tortoiseshell, some patches of cells in an XX individual turn off the X chromosome inherited from the mother, and other patches turn off the one inherited from the father. Despite one being turned off, the presence of both increases the genetic diversity of an XX individual, as an XY individual has only the X from the mother, and this occurs on varying levels. Tissues can be an even mix of mother X and father X, or they can be skewed toward one side or the other; research with mice showed some animals with eyes containing almost all cells expressing one of the Xs.

The mechanism behind this differentiation is still in testing, but scientists are working with a series of molecules that perform the condensation, which is led by the molecule Xist. Xist molecules latch onto the chromosome being condensed and signal for the rest of the molecules to come over. While the swarm of molecules might sound a little scary, cells that didn't have Xist were more likely to develop cancer due to the additional proteins being made by the second X chromosome.

A very cold field trip

My astronomy professor last spring spent a good portion of class one day telling us about his trip to Svalbard a few years back. Apparently the territory of Norway is not only the site of Norway's seed bank (though I doubt that's why he was there), it's also a very good place for astronomy observation, though a very cold place for it. I believe he was there over the summer solstice, so he would have been there for the 24-hour daylight, and he said that the high latitude (700 miles from the North Pole, after all) made it so the change in daylight hours each day was a lot more drastic than it is here (12 minutes or so per day versus one or two here in the Northeast).

I'm not exactly in the market for a similar trip (mostly due to the school and money thing), but Discover Magazine is sponsoring a trip to Svalbard for the total solar eclipse in March 2015. The path of this particular eclipse will pass right over Svalbard, so people would be able to see the eclipse for almost two and a half minutes; as a comparison, the site of the greatest total eclipse, near the Faroe Islands, would see it for 2 minutes and 47 seconds, so this is pretty close.

Picture from NASA on Wikimedia Commons by public domain

The trip would start and end in Oslo, and during the four-night stint in Longyearbyen, it would include adventures in dog sledding, glacial spelunking, aurora sighting, or just exploring the island in addition to the eclipse on March 20. Each day would also have an education session about the flora, fauna, geology, and more on the island. Prices sit around $6000 for the week-long trip, but considering what you're getting, it sounds like a pretty neat opportunity.

One size does not fit all

(So much for posting daily… though to be fair, I was coming back to school yesterday and my ride was ~1 hour late.)

Mannequins have been receiving a good amount of press lately. Last month, Pro Infirmis premiered a line of mannequins modeled after famous people with physical disabilities as part of their "Because Who Is Perfect? Get Closer" campaign. The organization worked with individuals with different disabilities, such as brittle bone disease or spinal malformations, to create figures that looked like them, and the finished models were put on display in storefronts in Zurich's main shopping area for International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Now, an Estonian company has created a shape-shifting mannequin that can adjust bodily dimensions to give consumers a better idea of how an article of clothing may fit on their body types. Robotics workers at the University of Tartu and an ergonomics firm from Germany teamed up to develop a figure with panels that move to simulate different chest, hip, arm, and waist measurements. When coated in the same material used in prosthetic limbs, the mannequin provided a more realistic simulation of how clothing would lay on a given person than a computer rendering.

Currently, only high-end retailers are adopting the technology: the staff at Fits.me take samples from these companies, put them on mannequins with different dimensions, and take a picture to add to the database and show what each article of clothing would look on a given person. However, if all it takes is a few clothing samples, I imagine it wouldn't be that hard to pick up, and it would help reduce the amount of clothing articles that are returned. It may also be the kick in the pants that some companies need to realize that not everyone comes in the same shape and size (something that manufacturers of juniors' clothing don't understand).

Smellophone

Back when I used to sit with my parents and watch Emeril Lagasse work his cooking magic on Food Network before I went to bed, he'd occasionally bring up the idea of "smellovision" in his show. Alongside "BAM" and other isms, "smellovision" was one of his iconic words, referring to his dream to share the wonderful smells of his TV kitchen with viewers at home. While smellovision would be great for cooking shows, it would pose problematic for, say, Dirty Jobs, plus it's a bit far-fetched to be able to transmit specific smells through cable, satellite, or the air.

Enter the oPhone. Instead of smellovision, this olfactory communication device enables users to send smells to each other. The oChip inside the phone contains the information for hundreds (and eventually thousands) of different smells that you can send to yourself or another oPhone user. These smells can also be combined to create more complex messages, and the plan is to package two oPhones together so users can receive more than one smell at the same time.

The developers admit to their new technology being a little clunky, but the value in being able to send smelly texts is the connection between smell and memory. Smells can conjure up emotions, like the happiness of a freshly-baked cookie or the horror of finding old food in the fridge, and people can relate to each other based on these memories or thoughts. The company is also working to create a universal oChip, into which you can program whatever smell you want. I have a feeling that this feature would end up being used more for pranks than for productive uses, but a whimsical idea like a smellophone has to come with some fun.

A useful reality show

I've seen bits and pieces of shows like Shark Tank that profile inventors and their creations, but they're few and far between. Like anything, some of the ideas are pretty awesome, but a lot of the ideas are pretty horrendous. Somehow, this makes shows like American Idol hits - there are even entire episodes of the most awful entries - but not when it comes to shows that could lead to something useful. Today's public radio adventures included a segment about the intellectual booms in other countries, and the hosts discussed a show called Stars of Science that features inventors around the Middle East.

The show, which just finished its 5th season, is sponsored by the Qatar Foundation, a non-profit started by the royal family in 1995 to foster education, research, and community development to grow the "knowledge economy." Sixteen contestants go through the development process for their inventions, with a few people getting cut each show until the final four present their ideas to the panel, and the audience ranks the finalists. The top four ideas from last season were camel racing diagnostic boots, a mechanical Braille editor, a speech synthesizer for the language impaired, and a machine that provided automated scoring for when football (soccer) scoring gets fought over.

I think a show like this is a great idea because it provides a great opportunity for young innovators to develop and promote their ideas. Each episode goes through an important step in the process, like design, engineering, marketing, etc., and it gives a great outlet for sponsors for these great projects. (Plus it gets the guys on the shows to think twice about not speaking to the women out of fear of "disrespecting" anyone because the women have had great ideas too.)

Wins and losses

The fact that Congress actually agreed on something is a win in itself, but with the spending budget comes shifts in how that money is distributed. The scientific community is divided in terms of approval of the appropriation, with some departments seeing increases and others seeing cuts.

Picture from NASA on Wikimedia Commons via pubic domain

NASA came out as an unexpected winner in the budget with $17.65 billion granted until September 2015, which was an $800 million increase over last year and much higher than the $16.1 billion that estimates had suggested. The bill also established specific allotments for various projects: the James Webb Space Telescope (a collaboration between NASA, ESA, and CSA set to launch in 2018) will get $8 billion, programming for a mission to Europa will get $80 million for planning, and the Orion and Space Launch System will get a total of $3.1 billion for transporting astronauts.

Unfortunately, the NIH wasn't so lucky. While it will receive $29.9 billion, $1 billion higher than during the sequester, it's still $714 million below what it was pre-sequester. It also doesn't help that when adjusting for inflation, the allotment is lower than it was in the early 2000s, and this is starting to put us behind the 8-ball on medical research. The National Institute of Aging got an $80 million increase, which will help support research for Alzheimers', but beyond that, medical research got the short end of this stick.

And in a perfect world, the defense budget would go toward battle wound treatment and mental health programming, but I digress.

Dinosaur fish?

This week had a lot of fish-related news, especially in terms of offbeat aquatic animals.

The first was a study showing that fish can jump out of the water and eat birds right out of the air. I know that flying fish jump pretty high out of the water, and I wouldn't be surprised if a shark could catch a bird while breaching, but I wouldn't expect a successful catch from anything smaller. It turns out that African tigerfish, which live near the Botswana and Zimbabwe borders with South Africa, go after barn swallows. Scientists originally went out to observe migration behavior but tracked around 20 successful attacks on birds, thus proving a regional myth that previously hadn't been given much validity.

Since the first filming of a live giant squid in 2012, sightings and catchings are still few and far between… until a Japanese fisherman accidentally caught one while fishing for yellowtail. It's not the radioactive squid that inevitably proved to be an urban legend, but this one was a good 13 feet long and 350 pounds, so it's still pretty darn scary. It didn't survive much past its capture, but the catch might help scientists study these creatures considering how difficult they are to catch.

And finally, fish markets have become an unlikely but increasingly common place to find rare species; in proper coelacanth fashion, a shark species thought to be extinct was found at a fish market in Kuwait. The first (and only) specimen of the smoothtooth blacktip shark was found in 1902, and another wasn't identified until 2011 at the eastern fish market in Kuwait. Other rare and locally protected species, such as sand tiger sharks, whale sharks, and green sawfish, have also been found at fish markets around the Arabian peninsula, despite legislation preventing shark fishing.

A wrinkle in science

Last summer, I was first introduced to the radio show Science Friday while at work; the guy I work with and I were at one of the satellite campuses, but he had to do some troubleshooting in an area I don't have clearance for, so I stayed in the van. We listen to NPR almost all the time while out on deliveries, but we hadn't been in the van on Fridays around 2 yet, so I had the fortune of listening to this wonderful show, and what was even better was that he had to do a lot of troubleshooting so I got to listen to the entire show.

At any rate, that particular episode included a segment on why our hands wrinkle when they're wet. It's a universal sign that you've been in the tub or the pool too long, but for the longest time, no one could figure out what the mechanism was or why it was happening. The idea after the 2012 study was that the wrinkling was caused by vasoconstriction in the fingertips: upon extended contact with water, the pressure differential caused by the shrinking blood vessels created a vacuum of sorts that sucked the skin in. This was thought to be an adaptation for increased grip while wet.

Unfortunately, another similar study conducted last year proved inconclusive. Rather than just testing marbles like the first study, the second utilized many different materials in grip tests and showed that pruny fingers didn't affect the participants' grips.

Of course, this either calls for a third study to settle the score or avoiding wet situations when you need to grab onto something...

Another member of Neptune's court

Last July, the Hubble telescope discovered a previously undetected moon orbiting Neptune. Considering Voyager 2 went past Neptune on its way out of the solar system, it may come as a surprise that no one found this until now. However, NASA says this teeny satellite, which is Neptune's smallest at only 12 miles across, is "roughly 100 million times fainter than the faintest star that can be seen with the naked eye." You can see this moon compared to others in the following picture.

Picture from NASA and ESA on Wikimedia Commons via public domain

Unlike other discoveries in recent times, this one probably won't be up for public renaming because most of Neptune's moons are named after Greek god(desse)s of water-related things to continue the blue/Neptune/ocean theme. Disney fans will recognize Triton, Neptune's largest moon, while other names include Neptune/Poseidon's children (Proteus, Thalassa, etc) and minor water deities (Naiad as a general term, plus specific ones like Halimede and Galatea). A lot of moons follow this trend; Mars' moons are named after the sons of Ares, for example. The moons of Uranus, however, follow Shakespearean nomenclature (Titania and Oberon are named after the queen and king of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream).

Here's to hoping this 12-mile bit of rock gets a good name.

Dreaming of dragons

I thought this was too adorable not to share. Seven-year-old Sophie Lester from Queensland asked her parents for a pet dragon for Christmas, and upon getting the "we can't get one" talk from her parents, she decided to write to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization to see if they could help her out. (She gets bonus points not only for being adorable and interested in science but also for making a HTTYD reference)

The CSIRO is Australia's national science facility, so they probably have more important things to do than respond to an elementary schooler's request for an imaginary pet, but they did, and it was pretty wonderful. From their site:

"We’ve been doing science since 1926 and we’re quite proud of what we have achieved. We’ve put polymer banknotes in your wallet, insect repellent on your limbs and Wi-Fi in your devices. But we’ve missed something.

There are no dragons.

Over the past 87 odd years we have not been able to create a dragon or dragon eggs. We have sighted an eastern bearded dragon at one of our telescopes, observed dragonflies and even measured body temperatures of the mallee dragon. But our work has never ventured into dragons of the mythical, fire breathing variety.

And for this Australia, we are sorry."

And because the story went viral, even Dreamworks got onto this and wanted to talk to Sophie about her wish. While the company behind one of the best movies ever won't be able to do much, the lovely folks at CSIRO were able to give Sophie her Toothless using their 3D printer and titanium.

The 3D printed dragon is en route to Brisbane, and Sophie and her friends are all setting their sights on CSIRO for their future careers. From the agency: "We’d love to have you in our team, Sophie. For now, stay curious."

Brilliant breathy British biology

Every once in a while in AP bio junior year of high school, we'd watch clips from the TV series Planet Earth, whether to supplement our unit at the time or because we had to find something to do. As much as we'd enjoy poking fun at Sir David Attenborough's breathy commentary, it was a good series, and the filming was very well done. One of the clips I still remember was in the "Jungle" segment: it was a bit on various fungi for that particular chapter, but it focused on one type that was parasitic. It still grosses me out, so I'll share it with you.


And now that I just gave you nightmares for the next month, I'll get to the meat of my post: Sir David's AMA on Reddit. I'm not much of a Redditor myself, but I've heard the AMAs can be pretty insightful, not to mention a great opportunity to ask a famous person a burning question. In this one, he answers questions about what he's up to next, favorites and least favorites, and other fun memories from his career, like the time he got charged by a cassowary. Then again, this comment pretty much took the cake:

I think it's great that influential figures such as this timeless biologist can take time out of their busy lives to interact with fans. It says a lot about their character, you learn a lot, and it's entertaining.

The magic of technology

Now that I'm home and working for the computer firm here, I've been listening to NPR a lot, and they've been talking here and there about the CES this week. For the most part, it's a lot of stuff that I will never be able to afford so long as I have loans to pay off, but that doesn't mean they aren't pretty awesome. I'll preview a few of the ones I've seen featured.

The first was a new 3D printer from MakerBot. I've admired 3D printers since I first came across a massive one in a lab at my ex's university, and I've been pining for one since I found that MakerBot and a few others make a model usable in a home setting. Now they've released a larger model with a little more than 2,500 cubic inches of printing space, which can print one giant project or multiple little projects. In addition to this behemoth, which runs about $6000, MakerBot released a mid-sized model that runs around $3000 and has a 480 cubic inch printing space.

The second was a skateboard that seems like a good fit for balancing-inept people like me. The combination of a processor, a gyroscopic sensor, and a speed sensor detect a rider's lean; forward tells the motor to accelerate, and back tells it to decelerate. For a sum of $1300, the Onewheel can travel at a top speed of 12 mph for 4-6 miles, and it takes about 2 hours to recharge after the trip.

And the final one is something I could've used last night when I couldn't determine if that bright shiny thing was a star or a planet: a telescope. The COSMOS 90GT WiFi Telescope creates its own Internet connection, so all you have to do is find a celestial body on the app on your phone or tablet, and the telescope will find it for you. The app has a catalog of more than 120,000 objects, and the 90mm refractor gives the great views that Celestron has been known for for the past 50 years. And it's the cheapest gadget on this list at $400.

Alas, I still have… way too much in loans to even think about any of these, but one can dream.

Raising the dead

Like many publications, Discover Magazine (whom I follow on Facebook) is doing a recap of their top 100 articles from 2013. #28, which they reposted today on their page, involves a pretty awesome program being done in Australia called the Lazarus project. Those familiar with the reference will get the gist of the program; for those of you who don't, it's a de-extinction program targeting the gastric-brooding frog, which was iconic in the country until its extinction in the 80s. Of course, the link is an elaborate ruse because only subscribers to the magazine can read the rest online. But as your super helpful science blogger, I have my own copy of the article :)

Alright, so it's not the official Discover Magazine article but rather one I wrote myself. If you read the About page on here, you'll remember that this blog was a continuation of a project I did for my News Editing class sophomore year. We had to create a plan for a hypothetical publication, including a full layout for it, 4 articles, and pictures. One of my articles was about de-extinction, and I was able to talk to both the guy in charge of the Lazarus Project and the guy doing similar work with passenger pigeons.

To make a long story short, what both groups are doing is interspecies cloning. Normal cloning involves taking the nucleus of a cell from one individual and putting into a nucleus-less egg of another individual, using a third individual as a surrogate in the case of mammals. For extinct species, such as the gastric-brooding frog and passenger pigeon (among many others), scientists have to take the nucleus from their tissue samples and insert them into enucleated eggs of a similar species because eggs of the extinct species obviously don't exist. As one might expect, this doesn't always work quite as well, and last I checked, the Lazarus team was stuck at the division state: the eggs would divide initially, which was pretty monumental, but they don't get much farther than that in the development process.

While de-extinction programming has both positives and negatives, it's important to keep in mind that this is still a long way off. It doesn't mean we'll have dinosaurs roaming around our towns, and it doesn't mean that we can toss aside conservation efforts. But it is a pretty neat concept.

Do or die

This is a not so subtle nudge to people who haven't gotten their flu shots yet: please, for the sake of everyone, get one. I can guarantee that the flu is worse than the soreness of getting a needle stabbed in your arm (I was stupid and forgot to get mine last year, and I had the joy of traveling back to school without being able to breathe). Even if you're afraid of needles, getting the vaccine protects not only you but also everyone around you via herd immunity.

Herd immunity works by using the immunity of the majority to protect the immunocompromised. If most of the people in a population are protected, the illness is much less likely to spread and thus impact the vulnerable. It works with viruses other than the flu and immunity acquired in whatever fashion, but considering the flu is the main one in our area, if the majority of people get vaccinated - and that means each year, not just once - it protects those who can't. This includes the very young, the very old, or people with asthma or immune system issues.

I'm not going to get into religious exemptions from vaccinations because I can't speak objectively about it, but there are a lot of "science"-based reasons for not getting the shot that can be debunked too. Flu shots don't cause neurological or vascular disorders (this is where people need to know the difference between correlation and causation). Flu shots don't contain things that are going to kill you, including antifreeze or the full virus, and people allergic to eggs can take an egg-free one. And like I said before, the shot is going to be much better than the flu itself: it strengthens your system so you can fight it off, whereas the flu can't be fixed with a healthy diet or antibiotics (it's a virus, people), and it can kill you even if you're healthy.

So please, if you haven't already, go to your nearest pharmacy and get a flu shot. Vaccinate yourself, vaccinate your kids, vaccinate your family. You'll do everyone a favor.

The power of music

In honor of my newly rented bass clarinet, I decided to do a post on the science of sound. I instantly think of that scene in Fantasia with the line and how it changes based on the sounds of each instrument, especially the tuba bit where the line gets all flabby at the bottom.


Childhood silliness aside, Wired had a guest post about the physics of sound waves and how they can be used to levitate things. The author draws on the example of an ad in which a person's hair is blown back by their speakers, or the vibration you can see when you flick a rubber band (rubber band guitars, anyone?). In the latter, the wave travels back and forth between two ends and ultimately disrupts itself, creating the oscillating bit in the middle and stationary points at the ends - this is known as a standing wave.

As one might expect, you can't levitate something on a rubber band. You also need a net upward force (more pressure underneath than above) and an object small enough so that it doesn't press back down too much. The device referenced in the article and this paper, while able to levitate an object with a density of 1000 kg/m2, has a distance between anti-nodes (the oscillating bits, like in the middle of the rubber band) of only 8mm, so levitation on a large scale wouldn't be feasible.

So the next time your neighbor blasts the bass on the stereo, you can always hope that the frequency would be just right to throw your neighbor across the house.

Sea star stomachs and shellfish saving

When I worked at the science museum near school, one of my jobs was to help man the tide pool touch tank. We had a few different kinds of hermit crabs, some engineer fish, pencil sea urchins, and chocolate chip sea stars, and we had a separate tub that we would put some of the critters in so the kids could touch them. A lot of times, we'd feed them the morning of touch tank days so the sea stars in particular would stay put on their rock (otherwise, they'd roam around the tank), and sometimes we'd be lucky enough to have one of the stars do a backbend off the side and show their digestive process.

Picture from Frans Xaver on Wikimedia Commons via CC Attribution-Share Alike

A lot of people would get grossed out, but I enjoyed explaining to everyone that sea stars eat by expelling their stomachs through their mouths, wrapping them around their food, digesting it externally, and sucking the juices back in. Generally they'd be nomming on clams for this process, which tended to gross out the already grossed out even more.

In a Science Take by the New York Times, researchers have determined the mechanism behind this external digestion process. They knew that a muscle-relaxing neuropeptide was responsible for the expulsion and posited that a counteracting neuropeptide would reverse the process; neuropeptides in the NG peptide family, which trigger contraction, were tested and proved to retract the stomach.

Such knowledge may be applied in the future to help control sea star predation, as they can take out coral and shellfish populations that are both ecologically and economically important (not to mention protected, in the case of corals). And if it works with sea stars, they might want to extend it to other echinoderms, considering how sea urchins are notorious for taking out marine flora too.

Regional dialects: not just for humans

A few weeks back, I saw the New York Times' interactive graphic regarding regionality in vocabulary choices. As someone who has lived in the northeast all but two years of her life, I wasn't surprised to find that my test results showed a combination of Yonkers, Springfield, Worcester (or as we say here, Wustah), Boston, and Providence.

See? Right at home.

The quiz included questions including how to pronounce caramel (car-mel), what to call long sandwiches (grinders), and whether Mary/marry/merry rhyme (they do). I get poked fun at at school because of my odd vocab choices, but I enjoy listening for other accents and dialects because of the subtle differences that separation can cause; it's allopatric speciation for your speech, and I'm already a sucker for bio. My lab partner freshman year was from north of Syracuse and accentuated the A in words so much that I became his "leab" partner, and there's a running joke around campus that Long Islanders don't know that dog (dawg) and frog (frahg) rhyme.

And then there are international accents. I have friends from Australia and New Zealand, and I had to try so hard not to squee over their accents when we first met; the latter also sent me the Kiwi alphabet and how to pronounce various words.

What I found out this week was that this isn't unique to humans. I know animals can understand different languages (how else would anyone be able to train their dogs?), but according to the illustrious Sir Patrick Stewart, animals such as cows have their own unique dialects. This is one of those things where I can't tell if the topic is a serious inquiry or a huge joke, but it's entertaining nonetheless to hear him moo in various regional dialects of the UK and the US.

If only people here wouldn't question my Connecticut residency because I actually pronounce my Rs.

Into the unknown

This is a bit of old news, but a few posts on Facebook piqued my interest about the past and future of space exploration.

This is the first one, from Elise Andrew's "I Fucking Love Science."

The fact that this image exists shows two things, both of which are a little depressing: 1, people legitimately do not know the answer, and 2, people take advantage of the technology we have without thinking about how it came to be. The more we know about space, the more we understand about everything else, and the necessities that arise outside of our atmosphere have led to some pretty important products down here, including emergency and medical equipment. 

The second post was a glimmer of hope. Considering NASA's funding was annihilated, it's nice to see that the European Space Agency has their act together with their Gaia mission. In the footsteps of Hipparcos (High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite and a play on the Greek astronomer) in 1989, Gaia set out last month to create a comprehensive, three dimensional map of the Milky Way. The current goal is to track the precise locations and motions of 1% of the stars in our galaxy, which may not sound impressive until you remember that the Milky Way alone has 100 billion stars.

From its orbit about 1.5 million miles outside Earth's orbit around the sun, Gaia will be able to observe its one billion stars without eclipses. Because it'll observe each data point about 70 times, it'll be able to track brightness differences as well as spot any new bodies, such as planets, asteroids, or brown dwarfs. When the mission is over in December 2018, Gaia's data will be combined into "the largest stellar catalog ever made," according to the ESA.

Field trip to L2, anyone?

Genetic plot twists

It's pretty common knowledge that early humans radiated out of Africa through Europe and Asia and gradually over to the Americas. Nat Geo is currently conducting the Genographic Project, in which participants submit DNA samples to examine not only their own ancient heritage but also the overall patterns of ancestry and subsequently human migration. While this particular project utilizes markers on mitochondrial DNA, which doesn't change as quickly (and was the subject of a no-longer-online blog post I wrote for the school paper), a few other studies are analyzing the entire genomes of early humans.

The combination of studies - one looked at individuals from Luxembourg, Sweden, and Germany, and the other looked at an individual from Spain - suggested that ancient Europe was the precursory melting pot, with a mix of Middle Eastern agricultural societies, local hunter-gatherer societies, and northern Eurasians. Furthermore, each country has a slightly different percentage of ancestry from the three groups: as a person with Scottish descent, I would have more DNA similarity with an ancient northern Eurasian than, say, someone with Spanish descent (which I also have, but that's aside the point).

What I found interesting is that the blue-eyed gene may have actually come from the African hunter-gatherers that migrated to the continent 40,000 years ago. Previously, I had read that the blue eye gene was a mutation in the Baltics 15,000 years ago or so. Of course, that was in an article I had to read for the state standardized testing back in high school, but CAPTs aside, it's neat to think that the gene was a more distant and not distinctly European mutation.

Then again, there's also the lack of a lactose digestion gene in the Luxembourg and Germany individuals. It makes sense, considering they were adapted to a grain-rich diet as hunter-gatherers and hadn't gotten to the cow domestication thing, but considering how much of a staple dairy is in Europe now, it's interesting to think that we didn't start out that way. As such, I am eternally grateful for the Middle Eastern agriculturalists for allowing me to enjoy ice cream.

New beginnings

Happy 2014! Aside from my lapse in bloggery, 2013 was pretty good, so here's to hoping 2014 can keep up.

I'd like to open the year with experiential science, specifically regarding my axolotls. I got them in mid-June, a melanoid and a wild-type. They've grown quite a bit since I got them, though I'm not sure exactly how much because I never measured them when I got them, but the tank was always big enough for the two of them to share. The other issue regarding growth was that at the size of their arrival, they were too small to be sexed, and I never put much effort into figuring out how.

This is Chalchi, my wild-type

And this is Xochi, my melanoid

Of course, I had to find that one out the hard way when the Monday after Thanksgiving I found a bunch of eggs in my school tank. Long story short, I had a lot of fun trying to ship the eggs out to a fellow member of the forum I got the two from in the first place, and I still ended up with quite a few after classmates bailed out. To be fair, they were timed terribly (two weeks before finals), but at the same time, I don't have the time, space, or transporting ability to rear 100+ axolotls plus Xochi and Chalchi.

There was also the issue of separating them: I was able to get another tank for Xochi to live in while I'm home, but my school tank **ahem** already breaks school rules because it's too big, so I have a DIY divider made of needlepoint mesh and rocks for stability planned for when I get back.

And finally the eggs. I found that color is determined by 4 separate genes, and because I enjoy Punnett squares more than I really should, I spent one night earlier this week figuring out the possible combinations of alleles Xochi and Chalchi could have (8 and 16, respectively). Using SciencePrimer's Punnett square generator to save me time and paper, I determined the probabilities of each allele combo of the eggs. Once I got ahold of the lady I bought the parents from from and the guy I sold the majority of the eggs to, I was able to narrow it down to 2 and 4; it turns out that Xochi and Chalchi were from the same batch (oops), their parents were an albino and a leucistic, and some of the other eggs came out as albino and leucistic as well. Here were my findings:

• Wild - 39.6% (speckled greenish brown)
• Golden albino - 13.2% (recessive for the gene that controls melanophores; yellow)
• Leucistic - 13.2% (recessive for the developmental gene that controls color; pink)
• Melanoid - 13.2% (recessive for the gene that controls iridiophores; black)
• Melanoid albino - 4.4% (recessive for the iridiophore and melanophore gene; very pale yellow)
• White albino - 4.4% (recessive for the developmental and melanophore gene; white)
• Axanthic albino - 0.9% (recessive for the melanophore and xanthophore gene; white)
• And then a bunch of other ones that weren't important because they didn't have named colors and their percentages were too small.

The road block I'm at now is regarding food. The holidays messed up the shipping schedule for their food, plus some of my eggs hatched earlier than I was expecting, so now the hatchlings are in the fridge while I wait for their food to come in. It doesn't help that pet stores sell brine shrimp in every form but eggs, or that everyone still buys out all the Sea Monkeys for Christmas. (Fun fact: they're actually brine shrimp.)

Struggles aside, here are the things I've learned:

• Find a forum of fellow owners. They are an indispensable source of knowledge and will help you in the tightest of pinches.
• Know how to sex your animals if you're going to put more than one in a tank.
• If you're not ready for eggs, don't put them in the same tank, even if they seem too small to breed. Mine were less than a year old.
• Refrigerators are your best friend. Unhatched eggs will go into hibernation mode.
• Buy food for the hatchlings a week before you're expecting them to hatch. They will hatch early.
• And don't freak out. Concern is good, but stress is not.

If the hatchlings survive their refrigerator adventures, I'll post about them again. And if you want one, let me know.