inkycircus

The Three Musketeers @ Inkycircus

If you're read our About page, odds are you'll know what what we're about. We started this blog because we're three geeky girls who love science but only want to take it just seriously enough. We guessed that there are other souls out there who feel the same, and so far that assumption seems to be right. The other reason we started this blog was because we're hoping to eventually publish in paper as well as online, and it was a way to get our feet wet, learn about the web, and start trying to establish a presence. So the whole paper project is still ticking along, and every now and again you'll see a story about us and what we're up to. This blog is generally not just about us and our lives so I hope you'll forgive the occasional smidge of ego-publishing. So here's the drill. We're going to try and put in a post about us every weekend, and then during the week you'll get the traditional fare of interesting, aweinspiring, cool, topical, amusing, timely, cringe-worthy or downright cute stuff we've been doing so far. Feedback and comments are welcome, we hope it works.

Helping flatulent farm animals

Cows spend all day eating grass, which inevitably makes the poor beasts rather flatulent. And flatulence means methane. Methane is a pollutant, and agriculture is one of the main sources of methane pollution so cows are contributing to global warming. Just by doing what they always do, and eating grass, hanging out, and chewing the cud.

As the saying goes, a cow can't change its spots. Or was that a leopard? Either way, cows do what cows do, so if we want less methane in our atmosphere it's down to us. Or rather, its down to a British biochemist called John Wallace. He believes that by putting an additive called fumaric acid in farm feed he'll help the cows with their embarrassing problem. It's even a natural chemical so it shouldn't affect meat or milk, and they can sometimes get up to a 70% decrease in methane emissions which is lots.

Methane can of course be used as a source of power (see this BBC News story), but it would be pretty hard (and pretty unpleasant) to try and harness the methane 'emitting' from a herd of cows. So if this diet can make cows less windy it's could have really positive implications for reducing pollution. So we can look forward to a future of fart free farming. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Read the original story at MSNBC here.

Another 'innovative' vacuum cleaner

If you don't fancy shelling out for that robot vacuuming thing, you could always purchase yourself an Airpouf. And I don't mean Elton John in a hanglider, I mean this odd little gadget that is a hoover, but when you're not using it turns into a comfortable seat for you or your guests. Why? Goodness only knows.

It's available to buy from architonic.com, which is worth visiting to read their blurb. Apparently "Airpouf is an hoover which can be placed wherever to welcome your guests, comfortable as sitting place but also as home appliance. It appears like a sphere with three holes: the first one for the draft tube, the second one for the start button and the last one for the air-escaping; three coloured spheres close the holes while using the pouf as a sit and fly off when you turn on the hoover hidden inside it." An hoover? And it can't be very wise to have the coloured spheres just fly off everywhere when you turn on the hoover?  Where does the plug go? And why would you think to put a hoover and a pouf together? Madness.

This came to you via shiny shiny.

Short and dumb?

The amount of circulating growth hormones in 8-year-olds has been linked with said 8-year-old's scores on IQ tests, leading a bunch of University of Bristol researchers to claim that shorter people are dumber.

I think my lovely Anne, who is pretty short, would be appalled. What these researchers might have meant to imply (maybe they did..have you seen the quality of daily journalism lately?), is that kids who eat a really poor diet aren't going to grow as fast IN GENERAL, which includes THEIR BRAINS. This, however, does not mean that they won't catch up with the rest of the class and have similar ADULT IQs. It also means that kids who come from short families (like Anne) and grow at a regular, fully-nourished kind of rate are likely the same level of smart as the kids who come from tall families.

So please, no one go and start stretching your kids on the rack. I guarantee the psychological damage will outweigh any slight increase in IQ.

Domo arigato Mr. Roboto (for vacuuming and dusting)

Tired of all that pesky housework? Have $85,000 to spare? Well this little RIDC-01 could be your gift from god. Check out those mean dusting hands, that super suction vacuum-bottom. The 4ft tall, 220 pound dude also comes with a DVD player, built in projector-head and human speech recognition capability. So all told you can talk to your vacuum cleaner about the deeper facets of Star Wars while drinking a gin and tonic at...and "cleaning" all the while. Sweet. Not so sure about handily storing him away in your standard broom closet, though.

This robot, along with lots and lots and lots of others is one display at The International Robot Exhibition going on in Tokyo this week (via CNET).

science newsflash 2.12.2005

• Taiwan skyscraper may make the earth move
• Hormone 'leptin' could help maintain weightloss
• Don't demonise the cane toad
• 'Great Dying' caused by volcanoes
• Medical abortions can still cause infections

Monty Python killer rabbit outvamped by squirrels

Killer rodents are on the rise, from the BBC:

Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report...They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.

Suffice to say, it's a first. Theory is that the dearth of pine cones is leading the small rodents to seek other food, of the canine, not pine, sort. They are not alone:

Komosmolskaya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn chipmunks terrorised cats in a part of the territory.

As Tim says in Monty Python and the Holy Grail "that's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on." Time to bring back the scorned squirrel terrine at the Hadley Bowling Green Inn.

SHOPPING TIP: The Monty Python Killer Rabbit stuffy is for sale at ThinkGeek. If you're picky about the likeness have a look at Paizo, they've got seven incarnations to choose from. Better yet, there's a slipper version at What on Earth.

Physics for free

Motion Mountain publishes a free physics textbook for your downloading pleasure:

How does a rainbow form? Is levitation possible? Do time machines exist? What does 'quantum' mean? What is the maximum force value found in nature? Is 'empty space' really empty? Is the universe a set? Which problems in physics are still unsolved?

This site publishes a free physics textbook that tells the story of how it became possible, after 2500 years of exploration, to answer such questions.

But don't take it too lightly, the tome amounts to 40MB and 1240 pages. It begins with Galilean Motion and ends with General Relativity versus Quantum Mechanics in Chapter XI. Plus more is on the way. A major perk of web publishing being that changes are cheap.

science newsflash 1.12.2005

• Saturn's moon is 'quite like early earth'
• Ancient footprint is not what it seems
• Eating for two makes for heavier babies
• "It's Mars, Jim, but not as we know it"
• Birdy fossil had feet like a dinosaur

Monkey talk

(MACAQUE BABE. PHOTO BY YOSEMITE)
Macaques have accents too, reports Yahoo! news:

"Differences between chattering by monkeys are like dialects of human beings," said Nobuo Masataka, professor of ethology at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute...

Monkeys on Yakushima Island have an accent with a higher tone because tall trees on the island tend to block their voice, Masataka said.

"On the other hand, monkeys on Mount Ohira do not have to gibber with a high tone as trees there are low," he said. "Each group adopted their own accent depending upon their environment."

To which I say, ha ha! That's why us North Americans are so loud. It's better for those wide open spaces.