inkycircus

what's black and white and wrinkly all over?

the subjects of Mariana Cook's stunning portraits of famed scientists, on exhibit at the New York Academy of Science. for those of you not in the grimy city, you can take a peak at the academy's website or across the pond at The Guardian. the former has a fabulous flash version of the entire show. this includes a portrait of David Hubel (above), who helped unveil the visual cortex as we know it.

anecdote: jasmine and i interviewed him for baby jargon many moons ago. and at the start of the interview jasmine dumped her SCALDING CUP OF COFFEE STRAIGHT INTO THE NOBEL LAUREATE'S LAP. but judging by the hot cuppa in Cook's photograph, he seems unscathed. click on thumbnail to read the tiny print.

 

fun with words and pictures

	this

Woogle combines searches of words with images so you can communicate in images. so the phrase above reads "check this website." and for more fun and games: which of the following statements is true or false:

the		is

	is	a

file sharing teenagers are EVIL, i tell you. EVILLLL

i always use google.ca. why? because it is shorter than either .com or .co.uk AND when i go to the news i can read all about canada-type stuff. turns out that the youth of canada are immortal, gluttonous thieves, willing to *GASP* not correct a serendipitous bank error, cheat on an exam, shoplift clothing and even DOWNLOAD MUSIC ILLEGALLY AND FOR FREE. it's almost like filesharing is breeding a generation of EVIL DOERS. so says two polls commissioned by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), who are currently lobbying the Canadian government to strengthen the copyright infringement bill C-60. Canada made waves in 2004 after the supreme court basically said that file uploading and downloading was legal under the country's copyright law. yeah.

but back to the despondent youth. here is a picture:

(this photo taken in the auditorium at MY high school in Vancouver, as the would-be thievers listen to a politician speak/preach. har har. don't they look SCARY? and ANTI-SOCIAL? oogy-boogy)

CRIA president, Graham Henderson, said in an interview about Canada's teens "We've got a segment of society growing up without the same respect for private property that the older generation has."  read: evil evil thieves!!!

True, almost all "illegal" filesharing is done by those under 24. And of course teenagers are going to SAY they'll cheat on exams, shop lift, download stuff and scam insurance companies SIGNFICANTLY MORE than those over 30. DUH. they are teenagers. they are selfish, demanding and completely unaware of CONSEQUENCES. but is this a NEW aspect of dsl-era teens? i don't think so people. the only reason that elvis-loving, poodle skirt-wearing, bee-bopping teens of the 50s didn't download music, rip essays of the web and copy software was because the internet hadn't been invented yet.

but trust me, they would have.

and the prize for best science press release goes to...

ha.

at some point in the future when inkycircus is big and grownup enough we'll make this a proper contest. we'll invite nominations, have them judged by those with certified senses of humor, and have a cute little prize ceremony.   

but lacking all that glitz and glam at the moment we're quite content to act the monocrat and run with Corey's suggestion of the following, from the Journal of Great Lakes Research, as the best lede in a press release:

Ann Arbor, Mich. — Exciting new discoveries about how the male sex pheromone facilitates reproduction in sea lampreys...

it gets better.

has led to speculation of how it might be used to suppress their reproduction in the Great Lakes. Mathematical models were used to estimate the amount of suppression that could be achieved using pheromone-baited traps, decoys, camouflage, and release of pheromone-enhanced sterile-males.

so practically, what does this mean?

The models indicated that thousands of traps or hundreds of thousands of decoys would be required to suppress a population of 100,000 animals.

and that math clearly = great lakes over run with strange lamprey decoys and traps. fun. it certainly helps that the lamprey is quite possibly the best argument against intelligent design. they're ugly as sin.

(Thanks Corey for sharing such a disturbing mental image with us)

 

out of this world

   

Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive

has stirring, haunting, and humbling new images each and every day. click on the boomerang nebula above to enjoy the spoils of space exploration for yourself.

pirate treasure

this is just incredible. a little robot by the name of Arturito (and yes, in Spanish Star Wars, R2D2 was called Arturito - it means little Arthur) has unearthed about $10 billion worth of spanish and inca treasure on Robinson Crusoe Island (and yes, again, the original Crusoe, Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, was stranded here for four years).

the treasure was kept in 600 barrels, buried about 15m below ground. unsurprisingly the battle over the bounty has already begun. but the real story centres around Arturito. from 600 barrels of loot found on crusoe island in The Observer:

This most recent announcement, however, deserves greater credence because of the equipment used by the treasure hunters: a mini robot that can scan 50 metres deep into the earth. The robot, dubbed "Arturito", was invented by Chileans and over the past year has grabbed headlines by breaking some of the country's biggest criminal mysteries.

First, the robot detected the buried arsenal of a rightwing sect known as Colonia Dignidad. The guns and rocket launchers were buried at some 10 metres and while the authorities had searched for years, the robot found the buried weapons almost instantly. Then, in the case of missing businessman Jose Yuraszeck, Arturito was able to analyse the soil and identify the molecular composition of human bones, allowing investigators to dig straight to the body of the murder victim.

oh. and the photo is of Robinson Crusoe Island. FYI. looks nice huh?

i heart canada. and it's melting away

yesterday NASA and the US National Snow and Ice Data Center released a bunch of alarming satellite images that show the Arctic ice is melting at a previously unimaginable rate. summer ice cover has shrunk by twice the size of texas and is 20 per cent smaller than in the 70s. whola!

we've heard it all before, you know. the polar bears won't be able to hunt seals from the ice. they will die or move south, where they will die. and they are so cute. look.

 

and that's before we even think of the PEOPLE. the PEOPLE who call this area their home. the artic has always gotten the raw end of the stick. it's bloody cold to begin with, hard to make a decent living, and then it seems as if the world's climate and pollution problems zero in on the region like a poor a slug baking under a magnifying glass. persistent pollutants and heavy metals follow the air currents and concentrate in the north. frighteningly high levels of these toxins started turning up in inuit women's breastmilk a few years back. many communities have turned to more packaged, flown in foods, which are both more expensive and may be contributing to the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in these northern communities.

and now, as the earth warms, it will always be the distant, exotic and beautiful artic who is hit the hardest.

i guess that is what makes the whole global climate change, not my problem, not in my backyard, over my deadbody, but do i really have to give up the SUV?, situation worse. the dramatic effects seem so far away from the daily lives of the governments and people who need the message about climate change and consumption the most.

i've never been up north myself. but i feel like part of my country is just melting away. makes you want to buy bulk and ride your bike. right?

(read a less melodramatic report here from the BBC and check out the original release here for some nice pictures of the ice caps)

some natural (art) history

Lear went from this

                               
                        

                                 

to this

                                          
and this.

                            

before Edward Lear, king of nonsensical verse, became such, he painted birds in breathtaking detail for proper scientific books. during this time he also trained one of history's most accomplished natural history illustrators, a women no less, by the name of Elizabeth Gould. her work, which even garnered the accolades of John James Audubon himself, is on show at Women's Work: Portraits of 12 Scientific Illustrators from the 17th to the 21st Century. other visual gems include drawing of seashells down by the seashore and collections of birds' eggs replicated in exacting detail.

litmus test your dinner

the FDA has this fabulous website that lists the pH of foods. and, well, i felt the need to share. if only because some of the food stuffs listed are not the stuff of normal grocery store shelves. some things to note. apparently camembert cheese is alkaline (7.44). cheddar is acidic (5.90).  "mild american cheese" is most acidic of all  (4.98). other random gems:

Basil pesto 4.90
Bird's nest soup 7.20 - 7.60 [!?!!?]
Guava nectar 5.50
Mayhaw (a variety of strawberry) 3.27 - 3.86
Wax gourd drink 7.20

i know what you're asking. you're asking: what the heck is mayhaw. well. here you go. but can i just say, it grows on trees. ergo is not a type of strawberry dummy is a type of hawthorn.

more on giant squid

the japanese researchers who caught the beast on camera beat squid squad member dr. steve o'shea to the punch. which is somewhat sad since the man is maniacal about giant squid. the new yorker had a great article on him last year:

He reached into his wallet and pulled out his business card; beside his name was a picture of an iridescent squid. While I was looking at it, he grabbed one of my bags and hurried to his truck, which, as soon as he opened the driver’s door, exhaled a strange, pungent odor. “I do apologize,” he said, as he rolled down the windows. “You’ll find that everything around me smells of dead squid and ciggies.” In the back seat was a metal pole that was three feet long, with a net on the end. I soon discovered that he carried it with him wherever he went, often slung over his shoulder, as if he were a butterfly hunter.

but don't feel too bad. dr. o'shea is keeping himself well busy according to the New Zealand news:

More recently, Dr O'Shea began trying to lure giant squid into camera range by squirting squid pheromones, sexual scents, into the ocean off the South Island.

"These things come into New Zealand waters to breed," Dr O'Shea said  of the squid.     

"They're sex-crazed."

AND geography is in his favor. the largest squid recorded washed up onto the kiwi shores. it was 17.98m long. wowser.