cwilcox | October 14, 2008If you're struggling to pick up chicks, perhaps you should change your strategy. Instead of hanging out at bars boasting how much you can bench press, you might spending a few hours with some cute nurses at a Bloodmobile. Why? Because women think that guys who are altruistic are hot.
A new study published in the British Journal of Psychology by researchers at the University of Nottingham has found that being selfless can be sexually attractive, particularly for women. In studies of more than 1,000 people, researchers discovered that women place significantly greater importance on altruistic…
cwilcox | October 12, 2008There's a new phantom to add to the list of nightmare-inducing creatures: catfish.
No, seriously.
Bagarius yarrelli, a species of giant catfish called 'goonches,' have reportedly begun preying on humans. The fish are native to the Great Kali River in India, generally feed on insects, fish and prawns and grow to a length of about 6 feet. But locals believe that the fish have begun changing their habits due to a rich diet of partially-burned human corpses (which are, by tradition, buried in the river). The belief is that by eating flesh the goonches have not only grown larger, they've…
cwilcox | October 9, 2008... then you don't want to know how much we lose economically by deforestation each year. Pavan Sukhdev, leader of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (Teeb), explained at the World Conservation Congress that the monetary cost of the nature we destroy makes the losses on the financial markets look like chump change. We lose about $2 to $5 trillion a year by destroying natural resources compared to the $1 - $1.5 trillion lost on Wall Street due to the current economic crisis.
The Teeb figure is derived from estimating the economic cost to replace the services that forests provide for…
cwilcox | October 9, 2008I have another blog now - up on the Nature Network. You'll have to forgive me, and if you have a lot of free time, feel free to check it out. It's more oceanography based (or will be, when I have more than two posts, anyway). Our relationship can withstand my indiscretion, can't it? God, I hope so! I still love you, you know!
cwilcox | October 9, 2008OK, so there's nothing really 'biological' about this story... but DUDE - I want one.
After years of waiting, we may just get the first flying car released in 2009 by Terrafigia, Inc.
The Transition is really a plane that you can use on the road, not a 'flying car'. Gregory Mone from Pop Sci even got to sit in the barely-under $200K vehicle, which he describes as "a single-engine, rear-propeller airplane that just happens to be street-legal." As if the fact that it can fly isn't cool enough, it also runs on premium gasoline - no jet fuel required.
Can we say the awesomest conspicuous…
cwilcox | October 8, 2008I love when scientists study the good stuff. Infectious Disease? Trite! Global warming? Cliche! Cure for cancer? Boring! So what is a dedicated, hard working scientist supposed to study to really make a difference in the world?
Oh, I have an idea! Premature Ejaculation!
O.K., I know it's a big (if brief) problem for approximately 1/3 of all you men out there (and I think I've met most of you), but seriously? I wish I could get a grant to do something like this.
Dr. Marcel Waldinger and his colleagues at Utrecht University may have found a gene type that leads to 'quick release,' so to speak…
cwilcox | October 7, 2008I just want to say that this might be the coolest thing I've ever stumbled upon while surfing the net. Hands down, by far, the best. Subsequently, it would be downright immoral for me not to share it with you:
Someone (found by this person) actually figured out how to knit a dissecting rat and frog. I'm sorry - I just couldn't help myself. I officially need to learn to knit, so I can make a pair of my own. Get the pattern for the rat or frog and make your own! Or if you're lazy, buy them. I think they'd make a great gift - especially if I'm on your Christmas list.
cwilcox | October 6, 2008How's that for a frightening figure? 1/4 of all mammals on earth are on the IUCN's newest "Red List," animals threatened with extinction - that's 1,141 of them, at least, with 188 being 'critically endangered.' I say 'at least' because almost as many - 836 of them - are 'data deficient,' which means there aren't enough studies on their population numbers to say one way or the other. But many of these are species that are hard to find in the wild, possibly because they're going extinct. âThe reality is that the number of threatened mammals could be as high as 36 percent,â says Jan Schipper,…
cwilcox | October 2, 2008For those of you who don't know, there are awards handed out every year to people who "do a service to humanity by removing themselves from the gene pool," lovingly named the Darwin Awards. Great stuff, if you want to get a good laugh at someone else's stupidity, but this is better.
Every October real nobel laureates give out "Ig Nobel" awards to the best scientific research that makes you "laugh, then think." Organized by the Annals of Improbable Research, the Ig Nobel prizes are given in the same fields as the Nobel prizes, plus a few extra which vary year to year. The winners' research is…
cwilcox | October 2, 2008Of all the materials that were discovered in the past 100 years or so, none have become so widespread as plastic. Plastic is used for just about everything. From soda-pop to sterile saline in hospitals, flooring to teflon pans, plastics have become universal in every home and business in America and around the world. Unfortunately.
The great thing about plastics is their almost unlimited usefulness. The finished product can be shaped in almost any way imaginable, vary in hardness, and is relatively chemically inert, all for a nice, low price. Unfortunately, these properties also make it one…
cwilcox | October 1, 2008One of the biggest claims of those who disagree with the 'theory' of evolution is that we can't see it happening. Therefore (so they say) it isn't any more valid than other 'theories' of how species came to exist. You know what I say to that? Spend some time watching cichlids in Lake Victoria.
That's right, folks - we've got evolution in action. Species actually splitting. It's some cool stuff.
Here's how it works:
The deeper you go, the darker water gets, but there isn't just less light. Light is filtered out by wavelength, meaning certain colors can only penetrate so deeply into the water…
cwilcox | September 30, 2008Rarely will you see a scientist get more riled up than when thrust into a debate of Nature versus Nurture. While the cliche term covers a lot of different aspects of science, the basic debate centers around exactly how much of who we are lies in our genes. A new study in the Journal of Biopsychiatry gives the edge to Dawkins & Co. They found that boys with behavioral problems actually have different levels of the stress hormone cortisol than normal ones - so they can blame their genes, not their parent's upbringing, for their out-of-control antics.
Cortisol, a stress hormone, is generally…
cwilcox | September 29, 2008Two words: "Herpes Gladiatorium". To be accurate, it's really a reason not to come into any physical contact with rugby players or sumo wrestlers, but since sumo wrestlers don't tend to be tall, muscular men with sexy foreign accents and devilish grins, there's less need to be reminded to steer clear of them. Researchers in Japan have discovered a new strain of this incurable virus which, according to an article published in the October issue of the Journal of General Virology, is even more pathogenic.
"Herpes Gladitorium", or "Herpes Rugbiorum", is a variant of Herpes Simplex (the cold sores…
cwilcox | September 26, 2008Green is the new black in American society, and one way to see how green you really are is to look at your carbon footprint. But do you ever wonder what the world's footprint looks like? I recently stumbled upon a really fascinating website by David Bleja and the designer of the Human Rights Arts & Film Festival that shows the world's carbon emissions, births, and deaths in real time (well, kind of).
Breathing Earth tries to illustrate the impacts that humanity has on the earth by simulating real-time births, deaths, and carbon emissions by country. Every time, statistically, a person is…
cwilcox | September 26, 2008I am all for animal rights, to an extent. I mean, fur is murder, and who needs fur anyway? And those Japanese should definitely stop slaughtering dolphins and whales. That's just wrong. However, there is a such thing as taking an issue a bit too far, and that is exactly what PETA has done...again.
PETA, known for their outrageous activist stunts, has found their way into the headlines yet again with a recent letter they sent to Ben & Jerry's. Why, you ask? I'll let the letter itself explain.
"On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your…
cwilcox | September 25, 2008Scientists tend to get a bad rap. We're stereotyped to be workaholic, out-of-touch geeks who think a labcoat is fashionable and would rather spend a day in the lab than at the mall. O.K., some of it is true (dude, labcoats are TOTALLY sexy), but not all of us have no sense of fun or adventure. Just ask the chemists from the University of Hawaii who have decided that there is nothing wrong with mixing business and pleasure.
Robert Liu and his colleagues study the chemistry of Vitamin A, carotenoids, and other polyenes. These chemicals, for those without a degree in chemistry, are pigment…
cwilcox | September 24, 2008Ok, this isn't so much of interest to a biologist as it is to me - a current Florida resident. Two new studies today released by FSU and FAU begin to predict the toll of global climate change on Florida's economics, and the results aren't pretty.
"The impacts of climate change on Florida's coasts and on our economy will be substantial, persistent and long-term, even under our conservative estimates," says Julie Harrington, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at FSU. "Should, as many models predict, sea level rise, and hurricane strength and other factors become more…
cwilcox | September 23, 2008Just because we're uber-smart doesn't mean we're foolproof. Sadly, even scientists make mistakes. The most recent case of unfortunate events comes to us from Mallorca, where the captive breeding of the Mallorcan Midwife Toad, on the verge of extinction, has infected them with a fungus that might wipe them out.
According to the paper recently published in Current Biology, the Mallorcan Midwife Toad was on the brink of extinction until a captive breeding program sought to boost the amphibian's population. Then, just as the toad populations were growing, the captive-bred toads got infected with…
cwilcox | September 22, 2008In the scientific community most people I know believe that global warming is a real phenomenon caused by humans starting with the industrial revolution. However, not everyone I know is in the scientific community, and many don't fully believe any notion of human-caused global warming. Well, we can have that argument another day, because it's not the warming that matters - it's the carbon dioxide.
Any marine scientist can tell you that carbon dioxide has a direct effect on salt water. When salt water absorbs the carbon dioxide gas, it reacts with ions in the water to break down into carbonic…
cwilcox | September 22, 2008Ever since scientists began experimenting with embryonic stem cells the blood of pro-life and other activists has been boiling, and a major ethical debate has ensued. Stem cell research could lead to some of the biggest medical breakthroughs since penicillin, but the destruction of embryos to attain the cells themselves has many up in arms. Thankfully, researchers at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have found a new, omnipotent cell line that may be able to replace embryonic cells, allowing research to continue without crossing ethical lines.
Pittsburgh researchers, led by Bruno…