Weird Science
retrospectacle | January 26, 2007 AIDS groups are complaining that Viagra promote unsafe sex, but I wonder what they'd think about these official NYC condoms? What seems like a funny concept is actually part of Mayor Bloomberg's initiative to reduce the spread of STDs by giving free condoms. And we *all* know that its the packaging that really matters in deciding on your choice of free condom!
New York hands out 1.5 million free condoms each month, or about 18 million a year. Hundreds of organizations get free condoms from the city and distribute them at health clinics, bars, restaurants, nail salons, nightclubs and even…
retrospectacle | January 17, 2007Some things, like Hollywood plotlines and political speeches, come in tidy little packages. But what's more tidy than nature's own package--the egg? The same researchers who brought you Dolly the Sheep (TM) bring you genetically-modified chickens whose eggs (specifically, the whites) carry anti-cancer proteins within them.
"One of the characteristics of lots of medical treatments these days is that they're very expensive.
"The idea of producing the proteins involved in treatments in flocks of laying hens means they can produce in bulk, they can produce cheaply and indeed the raw material for…
retrospectacle | December 3, 2006First, watch this:
I saw that on Yahoo last night and thought it would be kinda fun to try to figure out how it was done. Here's my guess. So, first of all, it seems that there are 5 toothpicks, broken in half (but not completely in half). The wood has been compressed due to the bending of the toothpick. Dropping the water on the toothpicks causes the wood fibers to expand as it takes up the moisture. Soon the bent toothpicks are pressing against their neighbors, which pushes them outward forming the star. Seem right?
retrospectacle | November 27, 2006You've all heard the old adage "Money can't buy happiness." But honestly, money can buy a Ferrari, and when was the last time you saw someone in a Ferrari who wasn't smiling? Now, I'm surely not saying that money is everything. Its not by a long shot. However, we live in a material world, and we are all material girls............or so says psychologist Dr. Ed Diener of the University of Illinois and economist Andrew Oswald. However, the effect of money on happiness seems to be small, and only effective up to a certain income level. While people who make $150,000 are consistently more happy…
retrospectacle | November 20, 2006According to a study of dog owners, people who own vicious and dangerous dogs, like pit bulls, have significantly more criminal convictions than the owners of tamer breeds. A vicious dog was defined as a breed that, without provocation, has killed or seriously injured a person, killed a dog, or was a pit bull. It excluded guard dogs and law enforcement canines.
Could this be used as a new form of profiling? (Continued below the fold....)
The study included 355 dog owners in Ohio, and was published in the Dec edition of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. The results showed that 30% of…
retrospectacle | November 4, 2006Although I wasn't initially aware of this myth, a technician in my lab informed me that an oft-quoted scientific myth is that a duck's quack doesn't echo. Now, as a student of acoustics, I found that hard to believe. And indeed, a research team at the University of Salford decided to actually test this theory by putting a duck named Daisy in a sound chamber and making it quack.
After recording the quack (and any echos that might have arisen) they came to the conclusion that a duck's quack DOES echo, its just usually too soft for most people to hear. Therefore, the myth probably arose that…
retrospectacle | October 26, 2006Add one more nail in the coffin. A University of Central Florida professor, Costa Efthimiou, has mathmatically proven that vampires could never really exist. His logic goes:
On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600. A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.
If mortality rates were taken into consideration, the population…
retrospectacle | October 24, 2006Men with blue eyes prefer women who themselves have blue eyes, according to a new study published in the journal of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. The reason for this may be an (unconscious) desire to keep tabs of the partner's fidelity, as a blue-eyed couple can only have blue-eyed children. So, if a resulting child has brown eyes (which is a dominant trait), there may be some cause for concern.
The scientists asked 88 students to rate the attractiveness of models based on pictures manipulated so that half of them had blue eyes and the other half had brown eyes. The blue-eyed men in…
retrospectacle | October 23, 2006The military is investing heavily in labs which are studying genes related to regeneration---specifically, the ability to regenerate limbs and organs. The motivation behind this is clear. As soldiers in Iraq and beyond are surviving wounds that previously would have been fatal, often their injuries include amputations which prevent them from returning to duty. The ability to replace lost limbs would be an awesome advancement in military medicine, and medicine in general. But is it really possible?
Other animals, such as salamanders, are able to spontaneously regenerate lost limbs and heal…
retrospectacle | October 13, 2006In a new study appearing in the September issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, David Wooten, a professor at Univ of Michigan, explores the impact of adolescent ridicule on consumer behavior and brand consciousness.
Ridicule, he says, helps teach teenagers what brands and styles of clothes and shoes to wear and which ones to avoid--if they want acceptance from their peers. These pressures also play a major role in thefts and violence by teens who covet expensive symbols of belonging, but who cannot afford to buy them.
"Although teaching is seldom the motive of teasers, learning is often…