inkycircus

It pays to be a pot and pan luddite

My mother has recently awoken the Luddite within - at least when it comes to cookware. Just this evening she was telling me how brilliantly the filets of beef came out when using a good ol' cast iron frying pan. A cast iron frying pan she was given as a wedding present 37 years ago. We've spent hours on the phone going over merchandise from Lodge Manufacturing. Check it out, you might recognise some products from those Ye Olde Pioneer towns of 1700s New England, or any movie based in the late wild wild west of America. Let's just say these suckers are built to last.

I bet you are wondering where the science comes in. Well a couple of days ago, the EPA decided that perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, which is used to make Teflon, needs to be phased out. Nobody knows how, but this nasty little chemical has found its way into the environment big time, in drinking water, breast milk, even building up in polar bear bodies. PFOA is carcinogenic and can cause birth defects (in rodent lab studies). Not good. Bye-bye non-stick.

So I bet you're all like NOOOOO, my cookies will never come off the tray! My muffins, forever glued to the sides of the tin! And my stir fry, a big puddle of cemented noodely gloop at the bottom of the wok!

Not if cast iron has anything to say about it. First off, cast iron can get A LOT hotter than lesser cooking materials. Teflon itself is an insulator, which is why it's hard to brown n'crisp things in Teflon coated pans. Cast iron also transfers heat incredibly evenly to food so it will be less likely to burn and stick - at high or low temperature. And because the iron itself is porous you can "season" the surfaces with fats to create a sort-of-totally natural non-stick pan. Of course you might have to wear a weight-lifting belt to pick up your roasting pan, but who cares? No chemicals, well-cooked food and some exercise to boot. That is what I call multi-tasking.

Best ad for a science museum EVER

Science World is Vancouver's homage to science. The biggest perk of being a Vancouver Girl Guide was Science World's sleepover camp-in, sheer heaven for us nature-loving badge-bearing dweebs. You know those fantasies you have about living in your favorite department store: cooking in their kitchen dept, picking your favorite sheets and duvet from home furnishings, and having a dress-up field day in the clothing depts? Well, having free reign at Science World for a night was like that but on Crystal Pepsi. You got to ride the electricity generating bike at 3am hopped up on fruit roll-ups. Stake out the model beaver dam as your bedroom or better yet, sleep on the mini suspension bridge and wake each other up by jumping up and down with wild abandon in the early am. Oh the joy. Hyper didn't have true meaning until I survived that night. Neither did the term all-nighter. It was paradise for us tweens. And ritual torture for the staff on duty.

But apparently Science World is all grown up now judging from this brilliant TV ad (left), which won bronze over at ad-awards.com last year. Go have a look and a laugh (best line: Ted, you old dog. How's that golf game? [smooch]).

Sony gives up on robots

At various times in history, various people have made various fusses about robots. Either it's "We've made a robot that does this and it ROCKS" or it's ""Oo nooo robots are taking over the world." I do think that some robots rock (e.g. Asimo from Honda) but I'm not so scared about them taking over the world. Robots, no, computers, yes. But that's another story.

This story is all about Sony. Apparently they've decided to stop making robots (see this article on BBC News). More specifically theyre going to stop developing and making Aibo, their robotic dog. They're also discontinuing Qrio, the little robot man. In the past Sony, Honda and others have spent vast amounts of money developing robots that try to mimic humans and animals. Since moving around and responding to external cues are not as easy for robots as walking and talking are for us, it always seemed like an amazing but ultimately self-indulgant pass time. Sony seem to agree and are pulling the plug on their robot development programme to concentrate on the Big Three - electronics, games and entertainment. This makes practical sense, and there's no denying that the world is crying out for a better PSP or DVD player, but I personally hope that Honda and the other remaining robot fans out there don't give up on our electronic friends just yet.

(FANTASTIC PICTURE FROM PT'S PHOTOSTREAM ON FLICKR)

Judgement day for Google

I really was going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Really. I've been to the Google headquarters and eaten their free granola, seed snack mix, organic chocolates, Power and Luna bars. I saw happy people whizzing around on Segways with their freshly done laundry. And they even get Ben and Jerry's for dessert at lunch. Such people must be nice.

I was even willing to forgive the whole Google China censorship scandal because a) without "censorship" the Chinese users would just be presented with a myriad of broken links and b) Google said that filtered out search results would be displayed somewhere on the page. So at least a Google.cn user could see the names of sites they were missing.

BUT according to CNET.com, Google is not fully returning omitted search results. And to make matters worse, the censoring/filtering is extending far beyond mere political reaches (the usual Falun Gong Websites and all others critical of the Chinese government) to search terms like "sex" "teen pregnancy" "homosexuality" and even "beer." Both the Essex County website and the Guinness Brewery website failed to appear. Oi! This handy fun-free censorship is NOT part of previously launched Chinese versions of MSN and Yahoo!

Now I still don't see this really as Google's problem. It's the Chinese government who are partying with the overkill. Google is merely facilitating. My consolation is that this is exactly this kind of oppressive government control of information, opinions and, most importnatly, alcohol that has lead to rebellion in the past. Mao anyone? Though internet users aren't exactly the most militant of people, lets hope this blatant kibosh on their freedoms provokes some USEFUL and NONLETHAL protest.

Postmodern hair cell video

This is by no means new, but it is to me. And I just had to share. It's the "World's most unusual rock video" according to the Radio Times circa 1987. Yeah, I said it was old. But soooo funny. It's basically a hair cell rocking out to Bill Haley and the Comets' Rock around the Clock. Jonathan Ashmore, UCL biophysicist explains:

The movie shows an outer hair cell which has been patch clamped using a whole cell recording pipette at its basal end. This allows the membrane potential of the cell to be varied. The low frequency envelope of RatC [Rock around the Clock] is played into the stimulus input socket of the patch amplifier, with a peak-to-peak amplitude of about 100 mV. The hair cell changes length - but at constant volume - because it has a motor molecule in the membrane along the cell sides which responds to membrane voltage by changing area.

Why postmodern? Cause while you're watching the video of the ear hair shaking its tooshie so are all the hair cells in your ear. Woahhh.

It's not a reflection of your bathing habits...

...just your keen appreciation of biology honey. The Anatomical Heart soaps ("Oozin' Heart Palpitations!") over at FeMalediction are a great Valentine's Day bet. Better than heart-shaped aerogel? Probably not, but cheaper at 7 bucks. And more practical - well at least for the average citizen.

VIA Boing Boing

Science date for your diaries ...

Our pals at Londonist recently signposted us to a festival up in Scotland that looks right up our street. It's a fringe festival and it's up in Edinburgh, but it's not The Edinburgh Fringe. Much less bizarre experimental theatre and much more science. Phew. It's called the OneEighty and it's in April - the 5th to the 16th. It sounds like an excuse to head on oop north, eat deep friend Mars bars (not), hang out and see lots of science. Sounds good to me.

Anyway, part of the festival is a competition called enSight which sounds a bit fab. Basically, the enSight crew will act as artistic matchmakers, and match up pairs of scientists and artists. The scientists submit an original image, then the artist creates a rough sketch representing their initial instinctive response to the image, then the two will put their heads together and create a piece of art in any media. The three components will then be put together to form a triptych.

Some examples of the sorts of images they're looking for are here - including graphs, photographs, and diagrams. The winning pieces will be exhibited at the festival in April. It's meant to give scientists a chance to show off their handiwork, give the artists some inspiration and produce something lovely for us all to look at. Winners all round really.

Since there's lots of stuff in science that's actually stunningly beautiful I reckon they'll have plenty to work with. But if you're either a scientist or an artist who fancies getting involved, you should go take a look and sign up. Here's that link again. And here's an FAQ telling you how and why you should take part.
 

(BOTH PICTURES TAKEN FROM THE ENSIGHT GALLERY)

Science newsflash 27.1.2006

• Gulf reefs damaged by Rita
• Monkey cops keep the peace
• Gates' pledges millions for TB research
• Atoms have their picture taken
• Beer company runs robot prize draw

Some graphic fun in order

Free Online Graph Paper generates custom designed pdfs of graph paper that you can print out to your heart's content. And there are some funky designs that obviously skipped my calculus class. Like the Tumbling Block and Diamond Trapezoid. Oooh. Plus if you feel like your handwriting is degenerating into chicken scratch cause you've forsaken pens for the qwerty keyboard, revisit perfecting your penmanship with the nostalgialicious Writing and Penmanship Paper.

Scientists behaving badly

What's with all the Hwang Woo Suk copycat crimes raging across the world?

1. Russian scientist turned South Korean super spy - but not so exceptional he didn't get caught. The superplastic techno wizard claims his leaked know-how builds better tires but not weapons and missiles like the Russian Secret Service believe. 2. Norwegian cancer researcher faked it. An oral cancer study that is. 3. So did a human enzyme prof in Tokyo or was it his underling or do we even care. The blame game is just soo Donny Rumsfeld and just as passé as his combover.

(SOME TARRING AND FEATHERING IN ORDER)