retrospectacle | October 12, 2007The Fibonacci numbers form a sequence defined by this relation (don't be scared!):
What this means, in English, is that it is a sequence of numbers whose relationship is this: after the first two numbers, each proceeding number is the sum of the previous two numbers. For example 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233.....and so on. Quite simple, really.
Fibonacci numbers have an interesting property. When you divide one number in the sequence by the number preceding it, you are left with a number very close to 1.618. This number is called the "golden ratio," and rectangle whose…
retrospectacle | October 12, 2007Looks like speculations turned out to be true, and Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize early this morning, "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."
The IPCC and Al Gore will split the $1.5 million prize, which will be awarded Dec 10 in Oslo.
I personally couldn't be more thrilled for him, and believe it was the obvious choice. I am glad to see political + scientific activism be justly rewarded.
Got some criticisms of "An Inconvenient Truth" to…
retrospectacle | October 11, 2007This is one that we had at my Pirates Vs. Ninja's party, which was a going away party for my badgerific friend Lisa. She's defending her thesis on Monday, good luck Lisa! This might fit in well with the rest of the geeky cakes...
Let see what we got going on here. First, pirate-speak ("We'll miss you matey! Yarrrrrr!"). A ship with a ship's wheel, and a couple of knarly pirate-types. A tentacle reaching up from the depths, for those so inclined to that type of thing. Several ninjas sneaking around, including not one but two ninja penguins (Lisa hearts the penguins). There are two small…
retrospectacle | October 11, 2007I have immense respect and awe for people with artistic talent. Since I have have absolutely none to speak of, the process of developing a piece of art from sketch to completion (and making it look beautiful) is something that baffles me. Artists who focus on the illustration of specimins, science, and natural history art are particularly awesome and rare.
I am lucky enough to consider as friends two talented natural history artists, Glendon Mellow and Carl Buell, who have both designed the beautiful banners which rotate on the masthead above. I have another to add though, reader John Perry…
retrospectacle | October 10, 2007I received an email today to this effect, which was rather interesting:
You seem to be sincere in your presentation. Before I cast a vote, would you be kind enough to answer this, please:
You are the only person around and you are wandering on a isolated beach. You do not have a care in the world as you breathe in the fresh, salty air and delight in the sound of the ocean surf caressing the sparkling sand. Your footsteps are slow and you enjoy the feeling of the wet sand between your toes as you walk along the gently lapping waves. You approach an object discarded along your path. At first,…
retrospectacle | October 10, 2007[I figured that some of you may be new to Retrospectacle due to the blog scholarship contest. I am also writing a manuscript and about to leave to give a talk in Antwerp. So, I thought I might repost a few of my more thought-provoking neuroscience posts today. I hope you enjoy them. -Shelley]
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), currently the most common childhood-onset behavioral disorder, is nothing if not controversial. Nearly every aspect of ADHD from diagnosis to prevalence to medication, and even its mere existence, is disputed by at least one 'concerned' group. And…
retrospectacle | October 9, 2007[This is part of a series I'm doing here on Retrospectacle called 'Science Vault.' Pretty much I'm just going to dig back into the forgotten and moldering annuls of scientific publications to find weird and interesting studies that very likely would never be published or done today (and perhaps never should have.) I'll probably try to do it once a week (and if you have suggestions, please do email me with them.)]
Its been a few weeks since anything truly old and shocking as come across my plate as fodder for my 'Science Vault' series, but when I saw this paper, I knew I had to blog it.…
retrospectacle | October 6, 2007
Here's a neat trick demonstrating the density of sulfur hexafluoride--its more dense than the surrounding air, so the tin foil boat floats. Jay Leno tried the trick out and started drinking the gas, which has the opposite effect on the tone of your voice as helium does. Hilarity ensues.
Jay Leno Inhales - Anti-helium... Hilarious - For more funny movies, click here
retrospectacle | October 4, 2007I had a mystical experience, and this is what came of it.
(Pictures below the fold....)
retrospectacle | October 4, 2007As I mentioned earlier in the week, I'm trying to raise money for a classroom-in-need to buy some books about neuroscience, using the case of Phineas Gage as a jumping off point. (And if you haven't yet donated, they would be most grateful for even a dollar!) I thought it would be interesting and appropriate to discuss what happened to Mr. Gage and how it impacted neuroscience. It all began when a large piece of metal exploded through his brain.
Phineas Gage was the ultimate average joe--a railway foreman who was laying down track outside Cavendish, Vermont in the fall of 1848. It was on the…
retrospectacle | October 2, 2007What happens when you take the "science" out of "neuroscience"? Well, you get something quite akin to Dr. Mario Beauregard's theories on spirituality and the brain. Dr. Beauregard and his graduate student Vincent Paquette are studying the spiritual experiences of Carmelite nuns.
First, we had to convince the nuns that we were not trying to prove that their religious experiences did not actually occur, that they were delusions, or that a brain glitch explained them. Then we had to quiet both the hopes of professional atheists and the fears of clergy about the possibility that we were trying to…
retrospectacle | October 1, 2007This year I'm taking part in the the DonorsChoose fundraiser taking place at ScienceBlogs. DonorsChoose is a website where teachers can ask to have small teaching projects funded, and potential donors can peruse the proposals can fund ones that seemed worthwhile. Many of the teachers who submit proposals to DonorsChoose are in areas of the country with poor educational funding and high poverty rates, and are for basic teaching materials. I'm trying to raise $1000 to fund three projects, described below:
1. I Want To Go To College But How Do I Do That?
This proposal, submitted by a concerned…
retrospectacle | October 1, 2007In undergrad, I used to study learning and memory in honeybees so always felt a sort of respect for the hard life of a bee. If you never felt a little sad to see a honeybee die after spending its lone sting or a little in awe of their ability to use a brain the size of a pinhead to transmit the location of nectar, you might after watching this short animated film. Only complaint I have is the obvious slander of our avian friends!
Music by Menomena, directed by Stefan Nadelman
retrospectacle | September 28, 2007 Some Japanese researchers have engineered frogs with transparent skin, so organs, blood vessels, or even tumors can be observed without performing a dissection.
"You can watch organs of the same frog over its entire life as you don't have to dissect it. The researcher can also observe how toxins affect bones, livers and other organs at lower costs," he told AFP.
The frogs are rare mutants of the Japanese brown frog (Rena japonica), which have been crossed to contain two sets of recessive genes. The mutants are fertile, as are their offspring, but the grandchildren die shortly after birth. A…
retrospectacle | September 27, 2007Blogs are becoming powerful tools of first-hand journalism, most recently evidenced by the conflict going on in Myanmar. A London blogger named Ko Htike has been blogging the violence against monks occurring in his homeland, but from his current locale in England. Htike wakes up in the middle of the night to review all the 'digitally smuggled' pictures and video that is sent to him from people in the thick of it in Myanmar. This is particularly important since very few Western journalists are allowed in Myanmar, limiting the amount of unbiased information released to the rest of the world.…
retrospectacle | September 27, 2007This year I am in charge of the UM Neuroscience program's Spring Symposia, which is where students nominate and invite interesting scientists to come give a talk on their work. The students also get to have dinner and hang out with the speakers informally (read: bar). I've been mulling over names, and thought it would be interesting to see what the blogosphere thought!
So, if you could invite *anyone,* who would it be? (And, if you know them personally, shooting me an email would be REALLY appreciated!)
retrospectacle | September 26, 2007
In keeping with my discussion of Japanese foodstuffs (see fugu) this week, I thought I'd post a bit about the alcoholic drink sake. Sake, often called rice wine, has polished rice kernels as its raw material and is produced from the combined effects of a mold and a yeast. However the term "rice wine" is a misnomer since wine is fermented once while sake undergoes multiple fermentations.
Under normal conditions, the starch in rice is completely resistant to degradation by yeast enzymes---therefore it must be converted to sugar first. This feat is undertaken by the common mold Aspergillus…
retrospectacle | September 26, 2007The following is a guest post by Tim Marzullo, Graduate Student in Engineering/Neuroscience at the University of Michigan.
"Tri, Dva, Odin, Zashiganiye!" (Three, Two, One, Ignition!)
A review of "Live from Cape Canaveral" by Jay Barbree
"Live from Cape Canaveral" by Jay Barbree serves as a well-written introduction to the last 50 years of human spaceflight. Covering the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle missions in 307 pages makes for very fast, pleasant light reading, and the book also serves as a memoir of sorts for Jay Barbree, who was a correspondent for NBC from the first…
retrospectacle | September 25, 2007
One of the more, uh, interesting culinary experiences I have had in Asia was ordering fugu (pufferfish) sushi at a Japanese restaurant in China. A few moments after my order, a plate was sat in front of me that contained lots of fresh, white sushi slices...positioned just below the still-gasping decapitated fugu head. My dad was so disturbed that he asked the waitress to take the fugu head away while I happily chomped away at the delicious sushi. Well, at least I knew it was fresh!
The fugu, or pufferfish, is a delicacy in Asia (and particularly Japan) due to the dangers inherent in…