Science

Goodbye brainy bird

Akufu — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 01:39:00 GMT

Having lost a small parrot myself not too long ago, this sad news touched me on a personal level.

Alex, the African Grey parrot was part of a long research project at Harvard, on communication and language abilities of animals.

[B]y using novel methods of teaching, Dr. Pepperberg prompted Alex to learn scores of words, which he could put into categories, and to count small numbers of items, as well as recognize colors and shapes. [...] Even up through last week, Alex was working with Dr. Pepperberg on compound words and hard-to-pronounce words. As she put him into his cage for the night last Thursday, she recalled, Alex looked at her and said: “You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.”

He was found the next morning, dead of natural causes, age 31.

Whenever someone calls you a bird brain, remember Alex and say: "thank you". It is a compliment.

Is there an entomologist in the room?

Akufu — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:20:00 GMT

What kind of crazy ass big - east coast US - bug is this? I found it sitting next to my car one day. It was about 3-4 inches in size. It was unhappy, because as you can see it had recently lost one feeler. Those pincers look impressive, though I doubt that they are effective (they aren't, right?... Right?!?)

Thanks to Katrijn I found the answer. Sometimes it is just as easy as going to google and asking "what is that bug?". It will point you to a website with the same name, full of all you wanted to know about bugs. So what is it?

A male North American Dobson fly (Corydalus cornutus). The pincers' function is to hold the female during mating and they are not used for biting. The female has normal jaws, which are big and strong enough to inflict a painful (non-poisonous) bite. The largest part of its life, the Dobson fly lives as an aquatic larva, a fierce predator, known as a Hellgrammite (unknown etymology, bummer) or Toe-biter. It is assumed that the adult form doesn't eat, especially the male with its oversized jaws. What's that bug has a lot of great pictures. The Tree of Life project has all the facts, including evolutionary relationships.

This is it?

Akufu — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 04:10:00 GMT

This is the seismic data from USGS station POHA as posted live on their website. It's been rather flat the whole day, but look at those last lines at 1:00 to 3:00 am GMT. I wonder if this is the predicted long slow quake? IANAG^* so I don't know exactly how to read these things but this sure looks quaky to me.

^* I am not a geologist

Earthquake prediction

Akufu — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 05:54:00 GMT

According to an article in the Star Bulletin, scientists at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory are expecting a slow earthquake somewhere in the next two days. It will take place at the Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island, and will not be felt by anyone, certainly not here on the island of Oahu (pfew!).

Despite its unusual nature, the amount of energy released will be comparable to a normal quake. A similar two-day event in 2005, if it had been compressed into a few seconds, would have been a magnitude-6 event, the same as the second of two quakes that caused millions of dollars of damage on the Big Island Oct. 15.

The US Geological Survey posts "live" seismic data on its website, as well as maps of the area with the location of all recent earthquakes. You can see there it is a surprisingly active area.

I will post later on my trip to Volcano National park, the site of the Kilauea Volcano, where it is possible to see what raw Earth looks and feels like, without it's comforting blanket of life.

Anyway, considering my reaction to a previous major earthquake I will make sure to wear a fashionable pajama when sleeping, just in case the earthquake is not so slow.

What is your worldview?

Akufu — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 06:52:00 GMT

Here is a chart showing the worldviews of different influential people, expressed as science - non science and their view on the future of humanity: progress vs. extermination.

Following the link above lets you take a simple test, determining your own worldview (just in case you are so disconnected that you don't already know that). In my case, no surprises, but then again the questions are not that complicated.

Just seeing that I am the opposite of Pat Robertson is worth it.

Darth Vader: eat your heart out

Akufu — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:56:00 GMT

Silly Darth. To delete a planet you don't need a Death Star. The IAU committee is enough.

The new definition for a planet, which does not include Pluto or any of the Plutons, is:

(1) A "planet"is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

(3) All other objects except satellites orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar-System Bodies".

Damn those Pluto-haters!

At least a Death Star has more panache.

Size is not important

Akufu — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:21:00 GMT

Pluto was identified as a planet at its discovery in 1930, but its status has been debated in recent years. Pluto is smaller than our moon, and has less than 1% of Earths mass. Part of the problem was the rather loose definition of a planet, which included almost anything non-luminous orbiting a star. The International Astronomy Union (source of the image below) set out, in a two-year project, to provide a rigorous definition of a planet to distinguish them from comets and asteroids. According to an article in the Guardian:

The proposal says two conditions must be met: it must orbit a star without being a star itself, and it has to be big enough for its gravity to pull it into a spherical shape.

The IAU will decide on the proposed definition next week. These are exciting times, because if accepted, it will not only confirm Pluto's status as a planet, but add three other planets to our solar system. The 'new' planets are Pluto's moon Charon, Ceres and Xena (officially 2003 UB313). These bodies, together with Pluto will be called plutons:

Plutons are defined as having orbits around the sun that take more than 200 years to complete and are tilted with respect to those of the classical planets. These differing characteristics suggest that plutons have a different origin to the classical planets.

More objects at the outer ranges of the solar system are possible candidates for a similar upgrade to the status of pluton. These include Varuna, Quaor and Sedna.

After reading this I have one burning question. How will astrologers deal with this?

Slightly disappointed

Akufu — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:47:00 GMT

But maybe my demands are too high. We are actually not doing too bad here in the low countries, about 70% of the public accept that "human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals".

This figure, from a short communication by Miller et al. published in Science today, illustrates public acceptance of evolution in 34 countries.

If you find the result for the US shocking (as I do), consider this:

[...] the evolution issue has been politicized and incorporated into the current partisan division in the United States in a manner never seen in Europe or Japan. In the second half of the 20th century, the conservative wing of the Republican Party has adopted creationism as a part of a platform designed to consolidate their support in southern and Midwestern states--the "red" states. In the 1990s, the state Republican platforms in seven states included explicit demands for the teaching of "creation science" (1). There is no major political party in Europe or Japan that uses opposition to evolution as a part of its political platform.

But does it matter whether people accept evolution? For instance, evolution is the cornerstone of biology, but there are more reasons.

The politicization of science in the name of religion and political partisanship is not new to the United States, but transformation of traditional geographically and economically based political parties into religiously oriented ideological coalitions marks the beginning of a new era for science policy. The broad public acceptance of the benefits of science and technology in the second half of the 20th century allowed science to develop a nonpartisan identification that largely protected it from overt partisanship. That era appears to have closed.

Ultimately this lack of knowledge or denial is going to affect science funding policy. The recent veto on embryonal stem cell research is a clear and worrying example of this. Increasing public awareness of the benefits of understanding evolution in medicine, agriculture (think pest control) and ecology is therefore essential.

Brutes and flower children

Akufu — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 19:11:00 GMT

150 years ago while mining for limestone in an area in Germany called the Neanderthal, workers found some fossil bones. The scientific community was not immediately very impressed, as original find description from 1856 states: "Nach Untersuchung dieses Gerippes, namentlich des Schädels, gehörte das menschliche Wesen zu dem Geschlechte der Flachköpfe, deren noch heute im amerikanischen Westen wohnen, von denen man in den letzten Jahren auch mehrere Schädel an der oberen Donau bei Siegmaringen gefunden hat." (my translation = my errors: after studying the bone material, specifically the skull, it is established that the human creature belonged to the Flatheads, who can still be found today in the American West, of whom several skulls have been found near the upper Danube, near Siegmaringen.) The find takes place three years before Darwin publishes his Origin of Species, so evolution, never mind human evolution, are still unknown concepts.

In 1864 the Irish anatomist William King proposes the name Homo neanderthalensis for this, according to his analysis, very primitive ape man, who probably wasn't even aware of the existence of God (gasp!): "[the Neanderthal skull] more closely conforms to the brain case of the chimpansee, and, moreover, assuming, as we must, that the simial faculties are unimprovable - incapable of moral and theositic conceptions - there seems no reason to believe otherwise than that similar darkness characterised the being to which the fossil belonged." If Ernst Haeckel had had his way the poor Neanderthal would have been called Homo Stupidus.

The image of the retarded, brutish, hunched Neanderthal has been thoroughly refuted over the years by archaeological research. They were skillful hunters, they were likely capable of speech, and they took care of their dead. A site, Shanidar in Iraq, excavated in the '60's, revealed a burial containing an unusual amount of pollen. This lead to speculation about burial rituals with flowers. This conclusion has come under debate lately, but it did change the Neanderthal's image for the better (was it a coincidence that it happened in the sixties? Maybe not).

Many questions remain unanswered. Not in the least, why the Neanderthal disappeared suddenly 30.000 years ago. Did Homo sapiens replace the Neanderthals when they invaded Europe 40.000 years ago, or did the two populations merge? The latter would mean that Neanderthal man contributed to the genetic variation of modern man. An answer may soon be provided by Svante Pääbo's research group, who anounced recently that they have already sequenced a whopping one million base pairs of the Neanderthal genome (using pyrosequencing, a revolutionary technique I discussed previously here). This research may have some inherent drawbacks, like the low number of individuals available for study, and the possibility that any neanderthal influence on the current population may have disappeared from the human genome through genetic drift. However, it will be a major step forward in the study of human evolution to have the complete genome of another hominid available for study.

Prehistoric trip

Akufu — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 00:34:00 GMT

Drug use is something of all ages. However, determining which drugs were taken by people in the past can be difficult. There are several 'hints' from archaeology studies: art depicting drugs or drug use, paraphernalia, drug metabolites in the physical remains or even remains of the drugs themselves. The most famous (and questionable) example is probably the reported cocaine-use of Egyptian mummies, published halfway through the ‘90’s. Unfortunately, the evidence is rather inconclusive. It is not likely that the Egyptians obtained cocaine presumably from south American traders, as no other evidence of cultural exchange has been found (unless you believe Heyerdahl). If true, it would turn our ideas on trade and contact between civilisations upside down, but extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence.

It’s another story entirely if the drugs themselves are found. A study published in the July edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science pushes back the date of peyote (Lophophora williamsii) use by Native Americans in the South West of Texas significantly. This confirms results described by El Seedi et al. a few months ago in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. The provenance of the samples in the latter study is a little unclear, as they were taken from Witte museum in San Antonio, and are probably from the Shumla caves. The samples in the first study however, were taken directly from this site.

Peyote is a cactus containing the psycho-active alkaloid mescaline. In relatively low doses, it quells a feeling of hunger and increases stamina, but it is most widely known for its hallucinogenic properties. And it is for this reason, that it was used in rituals by Native Americans. Ancient peyote buttons (dried tops of the cactus) were found in the Shumla caves in the Lower Pecos River area in Texas. As they were excellently preserved by the arid Texan climate, they could be dated directly. Until recently peyote use had been dated mostly indirectly by peyote motives on pottery and by dating other plant material associated with archaeological sites. Interestingly, aside from the dried buttons, peyote appeared to have been ground and, together with other plant material, kneaded in the shape of peyote buttons, probably as an effigy.

Surprisingly, it appears from the Ethnopharm. paper that mescaline could still be extracted from the ancient specimens. The date of these samples is similar to the previous study.

From a scientific point of view, the now studied “mescal buttons” appears to be the oldest plant drugs which ever yielded a major bioactive compound upon phytochemical analysis. From a cultural perspective, our identification of mescaline strengthens the evidence that native North Americans already recognized and valued the psychotropic properties of the peyote cactus 5700 years ago.

Martin Terry, Karen L. Steelman, Tom Guilderson, Phil Dering and Marvin W. Rowe, (2006) Lower Pecos and Coahuila peyote: new radiocarbon dates, Journal of Archaeological Science, 33, 7: 1017-1021.
Hesham R. El-Seedi, Peter A.G.M. De Smet, Olof Beck, Göran Possnert and Jan G. Bruhn, (2005) Prehistoric peyote use: Alkaloid analysis and radiocarbon dating of archaeological specimens of Lophophora from Texas, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 101, 1-3: 238-242.