So much science, so little time.

Today's theme: Planes and meetings.

• Fluid dynamics works on nanoscale in real world -- The spherical chicken equivalent in fluid dynamics: assume a continuum. Well, someone finally fixed the Navier-Stokes equations to work with real world chickens.
• Engineering modifications enhance aircraft safety -- Helping pilots and computers communicate using alphabet soup. (Refer to the Wikipedia article on PIO for more details.)
• Why even close associates sometimes have trouble communicating -- I'm not hiding information from you; I'm improving our communication.
• Meetings make us dumber, study shows -- Wonder if this will get me out of staff meetings...
• It's scientific fact: 'sleeping on it' makes a difference -- ...and if not, I guess I'll just take a nap.

What exactly are you trying to tell me?

This is a bit of an oldie, but it still gives me a laugh. Shelley Batts over at ScienceBlogs writes about the new PETA ad and how it fails to communicate what PETA thinks it should communicate. Seriously, if you're trying to convince me that "total animal liberation" is a good thing, telling me that my parents had sex at some point probably isn't the best way to do it; looking at this ad, all I think is "Oh, sex is good" and/or "chickens are tasty (when cooked properly)."

My advice to PETA: Get a new marketing department. Oh, and tone down the crazy; please don't make outlandish claims such as "behavioral scientists have discovered that the cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs, and even young humans", when there's plenty of evidence to show otherwise.

Would you vote for a ... as President?

A USA Today/Gallup poll released last week provides some interesting numbers as to how the U.S. electorate would react to "non-traditional candidates" for President of the United States. Much of it doesn't really surprise me.

By and large, I don't expect that most U.S. citizens are opposed to the principle of electing a woman or an African American as President. However, it's fairly obvious that in the context of the 2008 election, the female and African American candidates are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, respectively. Given the current political climate, I am fairly certain that neither candidate would receive the support this poll seems to indicate they would in the Democratic primaries, let alone the general election; I would be interested to know why that didn't affect the outcome of this poll.

The numbers for a homosexual and an atheist candidate are a little surprising to me, though. First, a majority of Americans (55% vs. 43%) seem to be willing to elect a (presumably open) homosexual candidate. This confirms my belief that the current controversy regarding gay marriage is being driven by the few who are shouting the loudest; however, most Americans don't seem to be buying the argument that two gay men getting married is a "threat" to "the institution of marriage". All in all, a positive sign.

What is less positive is that a majority of Americans (53% vs. 45%) would not vote for an atheist as President, even that candidate was "generally qualified". The poll didn't delve into why this is the case, but I suspect that it has something to do with people believing that "atheist" implies either amoral or immoral. I find this somewhat sad and confusing. I really don't understand why people think that belief in some deity is a necessary precondition for being a moral person. I don't understand (and frankly am terrified of) people who say that the only reason we don't steal, rape, and kill is because God tells us not to. At some point, we must learn to say that we don't steal, rape, and kill because it is just plain wrong, even if some god or gods tell us otherwise. So, if two people adhere to the same moral and ethical standards, why should the believer be anymore deserving of the Presidency than the atheist?

Another reason to buy a Mac laptop

Sure, OS X is cool, but apparently, these things can also take a bullet.

Via digg.com (so please take it with a grain of salt).

See, science can be fun

Catching up for the last couple days:

• Scientists create autonomous robots that can stand, crawl, wiggle and even roll -- Seems to me that calling it "SuperBot" is just asking for trouble.
• Boosting brain power - with chocolate -- And it's the good stuff (dark chocolate); not that actually buy enough (at the moment at least) for it to make a difference.
• Environment and exercise may affect research results, study shows -- No, they're not talking about the scientists; they're talking about the mice. And while it's not mentioned in the article, yes, it is a foregone conclusion that all mice will develop cancer.
• Bacteria could steady buildings against earthquakes -- The skyscraper of the future: tons of concrete, steel, and Bacillus pasteurii.
• Darwin in the digital age -- So what happens to evolution when large fanged cats aren't trying to eat us anymore? Plus, a great quote: "People don't die anymore from things that should kill them, that once killed them."
• Chimpanzees discovered making and using spears to hunt other primates -- Wait a minute, we're "other primates". Fortunately, we still a monopoly on guns. Further comments available from GrrlScientist and Darren Naish.
• Don't advertise during sexy programmes -- the viewer won't remember -- From the department of d'uh studies: "Sex seems to have a detrimental effect on females recall for an advertisement. Sex is only a useful advertising tool when selling to men."

It all depends on what your definition of "fuel economy" is...

An article in USA Today notes that fuel economy ratings (those nice little MPG stickers) have been lowered for most vehicles. No, it's not because car manufacturers are making worse cars; it's just that the standards used before were based on rather silly assumptions like "people don't use air conditioning and don't drive more than about 60 mph". This does support what the guys at Top Gear have been saying for a while now: the Toyota Prius doesn't really meet its 60-mpg claim, and that you can probably get the same (if not better) fuel economy with a good diesel.

Please tell me you're joking...

You knew this was coming. After all, CNN and MSNBC are run by Communists, and The New York Times is the paper of Satan. Clearly, it was only a matter of time before Wikipedia became "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American". Therefore, we're proud to announce Conservapedia!

This is one of those things where it's incredibly difficult to tell the difference between reality and parody. Conservapedia just seems so over the top that I'm tempted to classify it as the latter, were it not for the fact that people out genuinely believe assertions like "[f]aith is a uniquely Christian concept...[that] does not exist in other major religions."

Once I stop laughing, I think I'm going to run a "Mock the Conservapedia article" segment whenever I can't think of anything else to write about. Guest submissions are more than welcome.

Science!

• Brain candy -- Things I wish I were funded to study: the physiological responses to chocolate consumption; finding willing subjects must have been a huge problem.
• Thought experiments made real -- As if a single particle interfering with itself wasn't strange enough...behold, the brain warping wonder of Wheeler's delayed choice experiment!
• Storing digital data in living organisms -- Here's an interesting idea: Let's store data in DNA because as we all know, SNPs are never a problem (*snicker*).
• Folding -- Turns out you can fold a sheet of paper in half more than 8 times; more details can be found from this Historical Society of Pomona Valley article.
• Action video games sharpen vision 20 percent -- Because dodging rockets is a very useful skill...
• Maps, directions, and video games -- ...knowing where you are, even more so.

They'd be funnier if it weren't true...

Omni Brain has links to a couple of cute cartoons illustrating the differences between religious and scientific thinking. The second one would be much funnier if my lab wasn't in the process of trying to get an NIH R01: "Make up Theory based on what Funding Agency Manager wants to be true"...heh heh heh.

It's science!

Been busy over the last two days, so it's time to catch up. Some science picks from the latter part of this week:

• Nagging spouse? You may have an excuse for not responding -- No, dear, I'm not consciously aware of the fact that I'm ignoring you.
• West African chimpanzees have been cracking nuts with stone tools for thousands of years -- I, for one, welcome our new simian overlords. Check out this related article for pictures.
• Why we see faces when they're not really there -- That still looks like a grilled cheese sandwich to me. (Oh, and using Exposé to figure out the pixelated images is considered cheating.)
• Voracious deep-sea squid -- That is a lot of friggin' calamari.
• Have you heard about B-flat? -- Strange tales of tubas, alligators, and black holes.
• Artificial intelligence may answer some key questions about insect flight -- Tiny flying things measure speed and altitude using "optic flow" (definitely not FAA approved); personally, I'll stick with the standard six.

There's funny, there's hysterical...

And there's Fox News attempting the Daily Show...the pain, oh, the pain!

Fun science of the day

• The biology of Godzilla -- Because we're geeks, and Godzilla is cool.
• Intelligence and insanity -- The gene responsible for patterning the brain is also associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia; that may explain a few things...
• The tree of life -- Not much science, but it's a really pretty picture. Gives you an idea of how insignificant we eukaryotes really are.
• Pandemic the Game -- Infect, mutate, kill. The goal is to mutate and wipe out humanity before a cure is found. And no, I don't know why Western Europe doesn't have an airport.

How fast are you?

This page has you type out certain parts of the Gettysburg Address and measures how fast you type. I'm averaging some where on the order of 100 words per minute. Just curious where everyone else stands.

Annoyingly, they insist that "cannot" is actually two words (i.e., "can not"), and I keep getting points taken off for that.

Until now, I never truly understood...

The Twelve Commandments of Flaming. Very, um, helpful when you're about to flambé someone online.

What I found really funny, though, were the Google ads. When I went through, there was an ad for an "Exhaust Flame Thrower Kit" (a little boring) and one from eBay which read "Flame Thrower -- Browse a huge selection now. Find exactly what you want today." Well now, since you're offering, I think I'll have the model M2A1-7, please. Sometimes, you have to wonder what sort of programming went into Google AdSense.

Speaking of diamonds...

This year, get her the gift of BPM 37093. Weighing in at about 2 x 10²⁷ tons and measuring 2,500 miles across, it's the universe's largest diamond and sure to make her happy. Plus, it's guaranteed to be conflict free!

The only problem though is that I can't think of a single shipping company that can move an object that big across 50 light-years by tomorrow...

Amusing science of the day (err...week)

As a service to those few who might happen to read this blog, I'm going to start posting links to science (or technology) related articles that are amusing, whimsical, or just plain weird. I doubt any of these are Ig Nobel worthy, but they should be entertaining nonetheless. If nothing else, these articles demonstrate that what I do professionally (science) need not be boring, even to those not in the trade.

So, continuing with today's Valentine's theme:

• Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder -- Just what all those drunk frat boys need: a FORMULA!
• Frog love song: complex calls attract females, predators and parasites alike -- Be careful wooing your significant other on Wednesday, lest you face the horrors of "frog-eating bats and blood-sucking flies"
• Cuddling penguins lower body temperature -- Because the world has always needed to understand the thermodynamics of penguin cuddling
• Why good sex is no rat race -- Turns out pacing is everything...
• Male-killing bacteria makes female butterflies more promiscuous -- ...except, apparently, for certain species of tropical butterflies.
• Influence of the menstrual cycle on the female brain -- Finally, making progress towards explaining that "time of the month".

That's all for now; stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Just in time for Valentine's Day

A nice little article about the diamond industry. I also recommend reading The Atlantic article linked to in the "Additional Resources" section; it's old (from 1982) but still very relavent.

The fact that Google decided to attach De Beers ads to this article is just amusing.