inkycircus

Some choice material goods at the Tate Modern

The Tate Modern is THE geek destination in London this November. Why? Well, first off you can enjoy some great G forces while riding its rocking slides in the main hall. Second, the Materials Library is hosting four talks based on the Tate Modern's Rehang each Monday evening. You're guaranteed the chance to poke, prod, and play the art to your heart's content:

Each night will contain different activities and materials conjectures such as the opportunity to play a lead bugle, to stand on a thermochromic Matisse and sit amongst The Surrealists and to do battle on the smallest chess set in the world.

The first night "Materials Gesture", on Nov 6th, seems a case in point. It features "Thermochromic Matisse, The Sound of Rothko, and the chance to encounter non-newtonian fluid" all capped off with drinks and discussion. And the rest follow wacky geektastic suite. What does this all mean? No clue. But aren't you intrigued enough to drop 10 quid to find out? Knowing what Rothko's sound is like is worth the price of admission alone. For sure. (I've always imagined it as the voice of a chainsmoking humpback whale slowed down by a hundred. Let me know if that's close)

(Thanks Alom. You rule)

Periodic showering

A while back we blogged about The Elements, that great periodic table song. But how fabulous is this? If you like singing in the shower, you can sing the song in the privacy of your periodic table shower curtain. DUDE. Or if that's a bit too Bert and Ernie/rubber ducky for your tastes, you can rap to the Chemical Calisthenics song. Does life get more complete and perfect than this? Maybe if you have a pair of periodic table socks waiting to adorn your freshly scrubbed feet.

(Thanks Elizabeth!)

Wherefore Amanda Congdon?

No doubt dorky but babe-a-licious star Amanda Congdon had a huge role in Rocketboom's rise to vlogging fame. Which is why we all held our breath to see where everyone would land after the two parted ways in a bitchy fiasco last June.

Since then Rocketboom's got a slew of less-than-worthy ladies running the show. Yuck yuck and yuck. It used to feel like watching those hilarious skits in friday assembly. Now it's like watching your wanna-be-cool in-law suck at charades.

And wherefore Amanda? She's on the move, recording her roadtrip out west as she goes: www.AmandaAcrossAmerica.com. The result combines google maps, vlogging, flickr, and random peeps from across the nation. Basically, it's web 2.0 incarnate. Content ranges from didactic looks at biodiesel to meeting with local candid color.

Most impressive is the fact that she's gotten big institutions to fund her fun. Ford gave her an Escape Hybrid for her travels. And the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Countdown have tossed her some monies for the gig. Kudos for winning over more mainstream monies to your cause Amanda. 

Nice one Arry

THESE GUYS WOULD FIT UNDER THE CHANDELIERS NO PROBLEM. (PHOTO: PAT-SWAN)

There is an exhibition being set up at the moment at Buckingham Palace and I really want to go. It's meant to celebrate and inspire young scientists, but I can't go because I'm not on the exclusive list of  aspiring scientist schoolkids. How unfair is that. Ok, so all this stuff was part of the Royal Society's summer exhibition so I could have gone to see it then, but how often do you get to see a Spitfire-sized Pterosaur (aka Pterodactyl) in a glistening ballroom full of chandeliers? The dinosaur is a Arambourgiania philadelphiae, nicknamed Arry (this will appeal to all Frank Bruno fans out there), and he is being wrestled into place by two scientists. These two scientists are highly educated, intelligent men, but this hasn't stopped the palace staff dubbing them "Pterosaur Bob" and "Pterosaur Dave". How good is that. Makes me want to go even more.

Via The Guardian.

If Ester Williams was a science teacher...

Here it is folks. Mitosis as you've never seen it before. In a pool. With UC San Francisco grad students, pool noodle spindle fibers, and the Blue Danube waltz.

A whale of a time

I tried and failed last week to write a post about Iceland's decision to resume commercial whaling (they've gone and done it now, anyway). After reading this fabulous article from the Guardian, I was too depressed. I had planned to point out that Icelandic seamen killed 39 whales under scientific permits last year, the exact same number they are allowed for commercial hunts this year (9 red-listed fin whales and 30 minke whales). I was going to point out that Japan killed a whopping 1078 minke whales, 50 bryde whales and 10 fin whales in the 2005/06, season. I was going to suggest that, owing to the small increase in numbers (from 39 to 78), it wasn't that big a deal.

And you know, it might be okay to take an extra 30 minke whales from Iceland's waters. The safety of catching fin whales is more dubious, but hey, who knows? We have little rock-solid data on sustainable harvest and viable populations sizes for any whale species. If scientists could say that certain populations of whales were okay to harvest, I'd be ALL FOR IT (nicer killing methods would be a total bonus, though). But the science suggests cautions. The science suggest we know far too little to make these decisions. The science suggests that it will take more than a 21 year moratorium to give whales a chance to rebound after decades of intense over-harvesting.

What depresses me is not that more of these beautiful, endangered creatures are to suffer inhumane deaths on the high seas. What depresses me is that these people are ignoring science. And even simple economics. There is literally no market for whale meat - even in Iceland and Japan. If you believe media reports, both countries have vast freezers stuffed with unsaleable meat. The truth is that Japan and Iceland (and Norway, though they never bothered to join the IWC and have whaled all the while) are not upholding cultural traditions, keeping viable businesses alive or even securing food sources. They are asserting sovereignty over their fishing rights, their waters, their economies, their morals and their politics. No other country is going to tell THEM what to do. Mere "SCIENCE" certainly won't dictate policy. In the end, whales are caught in the crossfire of a political brouhaha that has much more to do with penis size than eating blubber. 

Oracle or stoner?

While you or I might turn to Mystic Meg or the Magic 8 Ball for advice, the ancient Greeks set a lot of store by the predictions and premonitions of their oracle - a mysterious lady perched on a rock in the town of Delphi. The greeks were a mighty race, and yet they turned to their oracle as a source of all knowledge and power - asking it/her trifling quesitons such as whether they should go to war or not. They truly believed she/it was their direct route of communication to a higher power. But it seems (say some scientists from Patras) that she/it was not communing with the gods after all, but merely getting merrily high on hydrocarbon vapours. There is a subsidiary fault running for 2km in the mountainous region where Delphi lies, and it meets a second fault near to the bedrock underneath the Temple of Apollo. This rock is porous, and is therefore "a site of ehanced degassing".  The rock is currently emitting a heady mixture of carbon dioxide, ethane and methane, but it's likely that around about the time the oracle held sway, the rock was also emitting ethylene. Couple this neurotoxic euphoria-inducing drug with a serious lack of oxygen and hey presto. One mystical oracle.

Via The Geological Society of America.

PS This story isn't especially new, it's long been suspected that the oracle was inhaling fumes. See this excellent in depth article from Sci Am. What does seem to be new is one of the first pieces of experimental evidence that the porous rock is still producing fumes today. And exactly what those fumes are.

(PHOTO: BLARY54)

Nelvana of the Northern Lights in the hood

Nelvana of the Northern Lights (left), for those of you who don't know, was the world's first comic book heroine. This protectress of the North was born in 1941, some four months before Wonder Woman, but was just as fleeting as her namesake. She last appeared in Triumph Comics in 1947. Her powers included the ability to turn into dry ice and travel at the speed of light on a giant ray of the Aurora Borealis.

Why is this timely you ask? It's just that there are some giant Aurora Borealis forecast for right now - like right NOW this very second - and tomorrow evening. And they're dipping way down below even the 49th parallel, according to the rocking map at The Geophysical Institue Auroral Forecast Page:

AURORAL FORECAST FOR SAT. OCT 21ST IS "HIGH+" FOLKS
Weather permitting, highly active auroral displays will be visible overhead from Minneapolis, Oslo, and Yakutsk, Russia, and visible low on the horizon from Chicago and Moscow.

What are you waiting for? If you're in the I'm-A-Lucky-Sod zone (which all of Canada is) go. Go outside right this second. Dr. Charles Deehr, from the institute, notes that if the display is delayed relative to the forecast, which has happened for the past five solar rotations when this particularly fruitful coronal hole on the Sun has been in position, then Americans even farther west might glimpse some auroral action.

If you aren't reading this until Saturday, no worries. The show should be even better then.

(Thanks Isla!)

Extra Credit

Two white girl rappers tellin' it like it is....about the evolution of virulence. Highlights include.. "Stay in school, because biology is cool, fool."

Monkey troubles

New Delhi, it seems, is overrun with rhesus monkeys. You may know these adorable little primates for their near ubiquitous use in scientific experiments - let's all conjure up the image of a sad, sad, baby rhesus cuddling up to a towel "mommy" or a happy and confused monkey being rocketed into space.

Now, after 60 years of ill-use, it seems they are mad. According to this charming story from Time Magazine's India correspondent, the monkeys break into office buildings, eat stuff, mess up paper work, muck up traffic, and even stop people from entering their own homes. What to do? Isn't the solution obvious? Get really big, tough-as-shit monkeys to sit like guard dogs on chains in front of said office buildings to scare away the rhesus plague.

Brilliant. Is there nothing that biological control can't do? (Thanks Debby)