Category: Science

Earlier today I posted some advice from John Stossel saying that when it comes to investing in the market you should forget what the experts say and either invest in an index fund or get a monkey to pick your stocks for you.

This, of course, leads to the question of how you will be able to communicate with your new financial advisor.

Fortunately, there is progress that is being made on that front!

Of course, there are some apes that have been able to
learn at least some sign language or other symbolic communications
systems designed by humans, but that’s apes. I am not aware of the extent to which
humans have been able to teach monkeys ways to communicate.

We are, however, starting to gain new insights into the ways that monkeys themselves communication.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE PUTTY-NOSED MONKEY (PICTURED) APPEARS TO HAVE SYNTAX.

This is the ability to combine linguistic elements–like words–into more complex wholes–like phrases or sentences.

The putty-nosed monkey, for example, has the ability to sequence is /pyow/ call and its /hack/ call in a way that means something other than what /pyow/ or /hack/ would mean on their own:

A sound known onomatopoeically as the “pyow” warns other animals against a lurking leopard, and a cough-like sound that scientists call a “hack” is used when an eagle is hovering near by.

The monkeys live in groups consisting of a single adult male accompanied by several adult females and their young. When the male utters this “sentence”, consisting of up to three pyows followed by up to four hacks, it seems to be a command telling others to move,generally to find safer, less exposed terrain.

[Dr. Arnold said:] “Observationally and experimentally we have demonstrated that this sequence serves to elicit group movement in both predatory contexts and during normal day-to-day activities such as finding food sources and sleeping sites.

“The pyow-hack sequence means something like ‘let’s go’ whereas the pyows by themselves have multiple functions and the hacks are generally used as alarm calls.”

So . . . if you’re consulting with your new financial advisor about the state of the stock market and he says something like /pyow! pyow! pyow! hack! hack! hack! hack!/ then it’s probably time to see about putting your money into bonds.

What do you get when you cross a polar bear with a grizzly bear? Many have wondered but now the answer has arrived, thanks to a strange-looking bear shot last month by a hunter.

"Roger Kuptana, an Inuvialuit guide from Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, was the first to suspect it had actually happened when he proposed that a strange-looking bear shot last month by an American sports hunter might be half polar bear, half grizzly.

"Territorial officials seized the creature after noticing its white fur was scattered with brown patches and that it had the long claws and humped back of a grizzly. Now a DNA test has confirmed that it is indeed a hybrid — possibly the first documented in the wild.

"’We’ve known it’s possible, but actually most of us never thought it would happen,’ said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton."

GET THE STORY.

Thinking: Can a polar hybrid be considered bipolar?

[JIMMY QUIPS: If the two bears are poles apart!]

These are birds of paradise.

They’re a plant that looks like a bird. (No, really.)

They’re native to South Africa, but we’ve got ’em all over the place out here in California, where they’re used as a common ornamental plant.

The other night I was at a square dance and, between tips, I went outside for some cool air, since we’d been hot hashing really fast and I’d worked up a sweat. (Man, that was fun! My square got through the hot hash tip without any mistakes! Yee-haw!)

In the moonlight, I got to looking at the birds of paradise that were planted around the War Memorial Building (in Balboa Park, for those who know San Diego) where the dance was being held, and I got to thinking: These really do look like birds. I mean, amazingly so.

The fact that they’re not birds is obvious to human eyes if you get up close to them, but not all creatures have vision as good as humans, and not all see them up close.

So I thought: This can’t be a coincidence. There has to be some advantage to the plant if it looks like a bird. So what might that be?

Well, an obvious one is that if you’re a plant that looks like a pretty bird then humans will take a liking to you and plant you all over the place, thus furthering your survival/reproductive aims.

But I don’t know if humans have been doing this kind of horticulture for long enough to have tailored this plant breed to look like a bird (though we may have).

On the other hand, bugs eat plants and birds eat bugs, so maybe if you’re a plant that looks like a bird, it’ll scare off the bugs. Some bugs may have an avoidance instinct for anything that has a bird-like silhouette, so having one would again further the plant’s survival/reproductive aims.

And then what might birds think of this plant? If I were a bird that looked like this plant then I might want to hide among a bunch of them and thus mask my signature from potential predators. If these plants provided such birds with a really good hiding place then they’d hang out among them a lot and end up . . . uh . . . providing them with fertilizer, which will again further the plant’s survival/reproductive aims.

So this is getting kinda familiar: A plant that takes the form of an animal for purposes of furthering its own survival/reproductive aims? Possibly intermingling with the actual animals that it imitates?

You’re next!

MORE ABOUT BIRDS OF PARADISE.

(Oh, and before someone else says it: "No, it is I who will replace you!")

Ever wondered about the origins of the left-handed among us? Scientists still do.

"Can openers, scissors and spiral-bound notebooks discriminate against lefties. Despite such challenges, 10 to 12 percent of the human population has historically preferred the left hand.

"Why doesn’t the number ever waiver? Nobody knows for sure, but new research supports a body of evidence that suggests genetics have a hand in it all.

GET THE STORY.

"[N]ew research supports a body of evidence that suggests genetics have a hand in it all."

Now there’s a relief. Here I was, afraid that left-handedness was just another lifestyle choice. My left-handed grandfather can now rest in peace, and my left-handed sister can now rest easy, with the knowledge that they likely were born that way. Will science never cease to amaze us?

Snarkiness aside, the article is an interesting overview of the history of the southpaw.

Word has arrived of the birth of a six-legged lamb in Belgium.

EXCERPT:

The report said Maurice Peeters, a Belgian farmer, noticed there was something different about the lamb born on his ranch over the weekend.

"The vet immediately put his hand on it, and asked me if I’d seen it," Peeters told reporters who visited his home. "I said I’d seen it and I said I’d seen it has way too many legs."

GET THE STORY.

(Just kidding about that insect thing.)

In case you haven’t heard, there was a horrific medical accident in England. Eight gentlemen were taking part in the first human trials of an experimental drug known as TGN1412, which is an anti-inflammatory steroid.

It worked okay in animal tests, but when it was given to humans, disaster resulted. Of the eight gentlement in the test, two received placebos, but the other six collapsed and two of them have major organ failure.

EXCERPTS:

A volunteer taking part in the trial who was given a placebo and therefore escaped the effects described the appalling scene on the ward.

Raste Khan, 23, a television technician, said: "The test ward turned into hell minutes after we were injected. The men went down like dominoes.

"First they began tearing their shirts off complaining of fever, then some screamed out that their heads felt like they were going to explode.

"After that they started fainting, vomiting and writhing around in their beds.

"It was terrifying because I kept expecting it to happen to me at any moment. But I felt fine and I didn’t know why."

Six volunteers suffered catastrophic reactions to trials of the new drug, TGN1412, at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, North-West London.

They were the first people in the world to test the drug, being developed by the German pharmaceutical firm, TeGenero, and designed to treat chronic inflammatory conditions and leukaemia. They were paid £2,000 each.

Four are in a serious condition but showing signs of improvement. Two remain critical.

GET THE STORY.

More from The Sun:

"It was terrifying because I kept expecting it to happen to me at any moment. But I felt fine and didn’t know why."

"An Asian guy next to me started screaming and his breathing went haywire as though he was having a terrible panic attack.

"They put an oxygen mask on him but he kept tearing it off, shouting ‘Doctor, doctor, please help me!’ He started convulsing, shouting that he was getting shooting pains in his back"

GET THE STORY.

More from Wikipedia:

Phase I clinical trials conducted by PAREXEL at Northwick Park Hospital, London, hospitalised 6 volunteers in March 2006, with at least 2 of them suffering major organ failure.

After the drug was administered to the last participant, the first participant started complaining of a severe headache, fever and pain and collapsed shortly after. Within a few hours, the remaining participants who received the actual drug had become ill as well, vomiting and complaining of severe pain. Within 12 hours all 6 had collapsed. At least one participant begged the doctors to "put him to sleep" because of the suffering.

Some of the men are reported to have experienced severe swelling with comparisons being made to The Elephant Man. According to doctors, this is caused by the large amount of fluids given as part of the treatment. The patients are being treated with anti-inflammatory steroids. Two of the men were reported to be in a critical condition with the remaining four being in a serious, but improving condition.

TeGenero has apologized to the families involved and insist that these effects were completely unexpected and that all protocols have been followed. An investigation of the case by authorities has now been commenced to find out if the reaction seen is due to a contamination of the drug given, a wrong dose being administered or if it is an inherent flaw in the drug. Criticism has been raised that 6 participants were given the drug in such a short time, which is against the recommendations of some standard literature.

WIKIPEDIA ON TGN1412.

The mention in the Wikipedia entery that police are investigating whether there is "contamination" in the drug given includes the possibility that there was deliberate tampering with the drug, which press accounts indicate the police are looking into.

The options here seem to be: (1) the drug is just harmful to humans where it isn’t to the animals used in trials, (2) accidental overdose, (2) deliberate overdose [highly unlikely], (3) accidental contamination, and (4) deliberate contamination.

The two with major organ failure are not likely to survive. Doctors are trying to flush the drug out of their systems, which produces the massive "Elephant Man"-like swelling that family members have reported.

Any way you go, let’s pray for these guys.

Drudge is linking a story on Central Florida News 13 which is now inaccessible due to high traffic volume, so here’s a mirror of what it says:

Big NASA Announcement Today

NASA is planning to make a huge announcement today, about possible life in our own solar system.

Exact details of what we can expect to hear have not been released. We do know that evidence has been found that could point to life relatively close to the earth.

Official word is expected this afternoon at 2 p.m. We’ll have complete coverage of today’s big news when it is released. Tune to News 13 for the complete story.

I’m skeptical, but we’ll have to see.

UPDATE: Well, I was right. There was no announcement of possible extraterrestrial life. One of the high-IQ boys in the MSM failed to understand the nature of the press release he was reading.

What NASA did announce is the possible discovery of liquid water geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

GET THE STORY.

The Daily Planet adds:

Wink Blinkley, NASA chief of lost planets and planetoids, was ecstatic about the discovery: "It’s so cool to discover water geysers on one of the moons of Saturn! Not only, that, but it’s on a completely unknown moon! Nobody ever heard of Enceladus before. We’ve known for a long time that Saturn had moons, like Titan–the biggest moon in the solar system. But nobody knew that Saturn also had a moon named Enceladus, let alone that it had liquid water geysers! This is a double-discovery of stunning proportions!"

What’s this?

That’s right! It’s a Kiwa hirsuta!

A what?

Well, it’s a creature that was discovered last year in the South Pacific, near Easter Island, though they only just announced its existence.

It’s similar to a lobster or a crab, but it’s so odd that they had to come up with a new family and genus name for it.

It’s family name is Kiwaida, after the Polynesian goddess of crustaceans, Kiwa.

To the name Kiwa they added hirsuta, which is Latin for "hairy." (Duh! It’s the critter’s most distinctive feature!)

The creature is about 6 inches long and is white and has only a vestigial membrane in place of eyes, so it’s blind.

Colloquially, those who discovered have been calling it a hairy lobster or a yeti lobster or a yeti crab.

H. P. Lovecraft would be proud.

GET THE STORY.

WIKIPEDIA ENTRY.

There’s a new star in the sky this month.

This new star is a nova (Latin, "new"–duh!).

It’s actually a nova that we’ve known about for a while, but you normally can’t see it with the naked eye.

Why can we see it now?

The star is RS Ophiuchi, and it is a very rare kind of star, known as a recurrent nova–a nova that doesn’t just brighten up once but does so repeatedly.

There are only seven known stars that behave like RS Ophiuchi.

Here’s how it works: In its star system there are two stars: a red giant and a white dwarf.

Matter from the red giant is spilling out and forming an accretion disk around the white dwarf.

The white dwarf itself doesn’t have the mass needed for additional fusion reactions, so it slowly cools down.

But if there is another body–like a nearby red giant–discharging matter then eventually the matter in the accretion disk around the white dwarf gets massive enough that fusion can occur, and then

BANG!

there’s new nova outburst as it blows this matter outward. Hence: recurrent nova.

RS Ophiuchi is currently experiencing an outburst, which made it bright enough to be seen with the naked eye (normally you have to use artificial magnification to see it). The outburst was first  noticed in February, and astronomers all over the world have been watching.

Why?

Because RS Ophiuchi doesn’t do this very often. The last time was in 1985, or 21 years ago.

I don’t know if the star has faded to the point that it can no longer be seen with the naked eye, but if not then this may be your last chance to see it with the naked eye for . . . quite a while. We don’t know when it’ll flare up again.

LISTEN TO A SLACKER ASTRONOMY STORY ON THE CURRENT FLARE UP OF RS OPHIUCHI.

If you’re like me, you may have run across a number of stories recently about how Antarctic ice is melting and causing sea levels to rise and how all this is proof of global warming.

Well, there’s another side to this story that you probably haven’t been told.

It’s true that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) has been losing mass, but what you likely haven’t heard is that the Eastern Antartic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is GAINING mass.

You also likely haven’t heard that hte EAIS is three times the size of the WAIS, and that the mass it’s gaining more than offsets the mass being lost by the WAIS. This means that, on a continent-wide basis, Antarctica has actually been GAINING ice mass.

In the map above, the minuses represent where Antactica is losing ice and the plusses represent where it is gaining ice (due to snowfall).

ALL THIS IS EXPLORED IN THIS VERY INTERESTING ARTICLE BY ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENTIST DR. PATRICK MICHAELS.

Something that Dr. Michaels doens’t mention but that immediately struck me upon looking at the map is that the minuses tend to occur near the coast of Antarctica (Duh! That’s where the ice slides toward and falls into the sea!), and that the western part of Antarctica is shaped in such a way that may lead to it being Antarctica’s natural ice slough-off point.

I just hope that so much ice doesn’t slough off that it uncovers the hideous Plateau of Leng or Kadath of the Cold Wastes!