retrospectacle | January 27, 2008My time here at Retrospectacle has been glorious, magnificent, awesome! However, I have decided to end things here and start a brand-spankin'-new blog (yes, here at ScienceBlogs) with Steve Higgins from Omnibrain as a co-blogger. I'm in my final grad year and felt that having a coblogger might relieve some of my time issues, as well as reinvigorate my love of science communication here.
But, we need your help to name our new blog! We're holding a contest to Name That Blog, with the winner receiving a slew of recent science books, a subscription to SEED, and a host of other sciency prizes.…
retrospectacle | January 26, 2008At Cracked.com I came across a fantasticly irreverent article about the five most horrifying insects in nature, including the bullet ant, the Japanese giant hornet, and of course, the botfly.
There are dozens of varieties of Bot Fly, they're each highly adapted to target a specific animal, they have delightfully descriptive names like Horse Stomach Bot Fly, Sheep Nose Bot Fly and, hey, guess what. One of them is called Human Bot Fly.
And since botflies can become lodged into any part of the body, it is not unheard of for them to make their way into the human brain and, well, *feed.* Behold…
retrospectacle | January 24, 2008Every now and then I do a Google News Search for topics I'm interested in to get good blog fodder ('neuroscience' and 'parrots' are of course perennial favorites). This time one of those searches popped up an interesting news piece in The Hindu newspaper which really resonated with me, tagged with a quote by David Baltimore: "You cannot do science unless you are an optimist." That is one of those truths that becomes so important in grad school when many projects fail, or good ideas get scooped, publication hopes are frustrated, and that final dissertation defense seems so far away. A healthy…
retrospectacle | January 24, 2008
Exotic bird smuggling is a pet issue of mine, not only since it decimates wild populations of parrots, but because it creates a demand for cheaper black market birds without a proper 'history of origins.' While it is up to the consumer (potential bird companion) to be diligent in determining where their future friend came from, bird smugglers should be busted and prosecuted. So, I'm happy to report that an attempted mass-parrot-smuggling (277 birds on a bike!) was foiled at the Belarus border.
Spokesman Alexander Tishchenko said the smuggler abandoned his bicycle and cargo -- contained in…
retrospectacle | January 17, 2008The plague was unbelievably deadly and disastrous in Europe during the 1300-1700s, but it is somewhat more surprising that the plague still claims a number of lives across the modern world. Even more surprising is that the number of cases has been slightly rising over the past few decades.
In the midst of my 'Plague Blogging,' an interesting paper was published in PLoS Medicine entitled "Plague: Past, Present, Future" which is chock full of information about the ancient, and modern plague. For example, thousands of people (even a dozen or so in the USA) still die from the plague, a bacterial…
retrospectacle | January 16, 2008When I was a senior in high school in South Carolina, I had a particularly smart and talented English teacher--the same my junior and senior years. I remember that the summer before my senior year, this teacher required all of us to memorize 50 lines of poetry over the summer, to be recited on the first day of school. Of course, we all thought this was incredibly mean. Homework over the summer!
However, I have come to realize that that teacher actually gave me a great gift, as I still remember one of those poems, 'XII' by A.E. Housman. It still surprises me to this day as to *why* I chose to…
retrospectacle | January 16, 2008In my grief over the result of the Michigan primary, I almost forgot to post a link to the current edition of the medical-blogging carnival 'Grand Rounds' which is over at Sharp Brains now. The appropriate theme is 'Briefing the Next US President,' with some choice blogposts included that would provide a nice education to any politician, presidents included.
retrospectacle | January 16, 2008Ok, I lied. There is no neuroscience of badgers. I just wanted to post this awesome video from an animal rescue facility in England, who reared an abandoned otter cub with a group of motherless baby badgers for companionship. Once the otter and badgers were grown, they were seperated so they could learn species-specific behaviors and be released back into the wild.
retrospectacle | January 16, 2008There's a new way to gauge your importance on the 'Net, a little app in beta stage called QDOS. The forumula used to compile your QDOS number (which made me think of Erdos number) is a propriatary blend of Myspace, Facebook, activity, searches, popularity, blogging, online buying, chatting, and more.
"We're trying to find a way for the consumer to take ownership of their digital status," said Tom Ilobe, chief executive of Garlik (as in, "powerful stuff," one of its mottoes). "Businesses are doing it pretty well, but the consumer is in danger of being left out of the game. Their information is…
retrospectacle | January 16, 2008Are you too poor to afford an exotic beach vacation in the dead of this frigid winter? Now, with the "Noisy Instrument" (pictured below) you can bring the sounds of the ocean to your sad, depressed little ear canals while simultaneously looking like your hearing aid ran amok.
Well, actually you can't, because it doesn't seem to be listed for sale by makers Jun Murakoshi Design. Sorry for the false hope.
So how does a seashell (or the unattainable Noisy Instrument) produce that whooshing oceany sound when placed close to your ear? The answer is that the device/shell traps ambient noise…
retrospectacle | January 15, 2008PZ Myers, despite being at a large Midwestern state school, has decided to pick on my current academic home, the University of Michigan. Why, you ask? Well, yes, a few students are doing something rather silly.
Engineering senior Israel Vicars didn't think it was a coincidence when he walked by a drunken girl who had fallen over in a parking lot and desperately needed help. Vicars attributes his ability to safely return the girl to her residence hall to the power of united prayer. Fostering that united prayer is what the campus program 40 Days of Prayer is all about.
Apparently a lot of…
retrospectacle | January 15, 2008Hydrocephalus, sometimes called "water on the brain," is a condition where cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) accumulates in the ventricles of the brain. This causes the expansion of the ventricles which displaces the brain, sometimes causing brain damage due to the intracranial pressure. The condition happens when a blockage occurs in the normal drainage of CSF into the circulatory system or there is an over-production of CSF. Hydrocephalus is rather common, occurring in 1 in 500 births, and can be treated by creating an artificial shunt to direct the excess CSF out of the ventricles.
Late last week…
retrospectacle | January 14, 2008Its sad serendipity that I found out that an Arizona-based biologist working for the National Park Service, named Eric York, likely died of plague a few months ago. Fatalities due to modern-day plague (caused by the bacteria Y. pestis) are extremely rare, especially in America. I'm not even sure when the last death from plague in America was, although according to the CDC there are on average of 2800 plague cases worldwide and 13 of those are in the USA. Only 1 in 7 of plague cases in the USA are fatal.
It is suspected that York acquired the plague when performing a necropsy on a mountain…
retrospectacle | January 14, 2008I came across a Russian blog purporting to have photo evidence of an abandoned Soviet-era neuroscience lab outside Moscow, left in a real hurry for unknown reasons. I thought it might be a hoax or exaggeration, but after looking at the photos posted to the blog, even if it wasn't exactly true, the photos were amazing bits of neuro nostalgia.
Many more pictures, go take a look. From Brusnichka.
retrospectacle | January 13, 2008
I just couldn't resist posting this, silly as it is.
Intruders smashed the front window of Pet Palace in Leominster, about 45 miles west of Boston, and as they entered the store the bird began to shout, said store manager Lori Oltman on Thursday.
"When he hears someone come into the building, or the puppies get riled up or whatever, he'll start calling for Rhonda, who is the woman who used to own him," Oltman said. "He was screaming for Rhonda and they weren't aware that it was a bird and not a person. And so they took flight rather quickly."
Oltman said police figured out what happened when…
retrospectacle | January 13, 2008After much gnashing of teeth, I finally updated my blogroll. Sadly, I realized I hadn't done this in almost a year and many of the links were old and no longer around. So, I pruned those out and put in a bevy of shiny new informatorial chestnuts for your browsing pleasure! Enjoy!
(And feel free to let me know in the comments if I left out anyone I shouldn't have...)
retrospectacle | January 13, 2008Although I don't care much about money, I do regret that having none means that buying beautiful works of art is something that I cannot do. I occasionally post here about interesting science/naturalism-inspired art, and a new artist I wanted to highlight is Richard Kirk. A friend of mine showed me his work because one of his pieces is entitled "Cochlea" (below). I was floored at the intricacy of his work, as well as the juxtaposition of precise medical realism (like the cochlea + vestibular system in the lower right corner) and absurd surrealism (the pulleys as joints, branches for limbs).…
retrospectacle | January 12, 2008CES, or the Consumer Electronics Show, is a trade show held in Las Vegas where new products are announced and demonstrated to the press. This year's CES just ended January 10th, and it looks like there was a small scandal that occurred. Gizmodo, a popular tech/gadget blog owned by Gawker media, pulled a prank which has resulted in the prankster being banned from attending CES in the future. In a nutshell, they brought some devices called TV Be Gone to the shows and proceeded to randomly shut down screens during presentations and press demonstrations. This resulted in a lot of embarrassed…
retrospectacle | January 11, 2008Just when I thought I had the LOLParrot market cornered, someone at I Can Has Cheezburger posts this awesome (and atheist) budgie giving the Great Big Kitteh in the Sky the proverbial smackdown (or wing-down?). Happiness chirp goes to Jake, who sent me this!
Check it out under the fold.
(thanks for the heads up on the budgie!)
retrospectacle | January 11, 2008
This is a continuation of the first part in a series about what caused the Black Death in 12th-17th century Europe, and part of Plague Week here at Retro, which is looking like it might become Plague Fortnight.
The first appearance of the Black Death in Europe was sometime in the 14th century, however major bouts of Plague recurred almost every generation until the 1700s when sanitation improved dramatically. Rare "modern-day" bouts of the plague still occur occasionally in livestock and people, but the invention and standardization of anti-bacterial drugs drastically improved the chance to…