competition

Competition horses calmed by lavender

dr. dolittle — Tue, 23 May 2017 15:28:14 +0000

Competition horses calmed by lavender

Image of lavender from
GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=322384

While lavender aromatherapy has been documented to reduce stress in humans, little is known about its potential for reducing stress in veterinary medicine. Horses can develop elevated heart rates and stress hormone levels when they are confined to horse trailers and transported to new competition venues. Therapies to reduce stress in competition horses are regulated and often prohibit the use of sedatives or oral supplements. Kylie Heitman, an undergraduate student at Albion College, was interested in whether aromatherapy could be used to calm competition horses during transportation. Kylie exposed horses to air-diffused lavender oil or water during transport and found that exposure to diffused lavender oil significantly reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol although there was no significant effect on heart rate. Her research was presented at the 2017 Experimental Biology meeting in Chicago last month.

Sources:

PH Koulivand, MK Ghadiri, A Gorji. Lavender and the Nervous System. Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2013; 2013: 681304. doi: 10.1155/2013/681304

American Physiological Society press release

dr. dolittle Tue, 05/23/2017 - 11:28

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Why orcas go through menopause

dr. dolittle — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 17:58:30 +0000

Why orcas go through menopause

Image of an orca and her calf from Wikimedia Commons

Orcas are one of only three species of mammals that go through menopause, including humans of course. A new study published in Current Biology may have discovered why this happens in killer whales.

Examination of 43 years worth of data collected by the Center for Whale Research and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, revealed a remarkable finding about the costs of reproduction in orcas. Older mothers tend to spend more time taking care of the family, so to speak, by making sure her offspring know where or when to find food. While this cooperative foraging behavior helps improve survival of the mother's family, further offspring from the mother are 1.7 times more likely to die than her daughter's offspring. This reproductive competition (or conflict) is thought to be a reason why the whales (and perhaps humans) evolved to go through menopause.

Source:

DP Croft, RA Johnston, S Ellis, S Nattrass, DW Franks, LJN Brent, S Mazzi, KC Balcomb, JKB Ford, MA Cant. Reproductive Conflict and the Evolution of Menopause in Killer. Current Biology. 27: 1-7, 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.12.015

dr. dolittle Fri, 01/13/2017 - 12:58

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Polar bears vs Grizzly bears

dr. dolittle — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 16:05:39 +0000

Polar bears vs Grizzly bears

I read an interesting article in the Alaska Dispatch News which examined interactions between arctic grizzly bears and polar bears. They found that although polar bears are larger, they tend to leave food sources when grizzly bears are around. This may be because polar bears typically spend a lot of time on sea ice without the need to be aggressive towards competitors. Of concern is that the relatively passive nature of polar bears may be detrimental considering these animals are increasingly spending more time foraging on land during the summer and fall months.

North Slope bone pile in Alaska. USFWS

It is thought that grizzly bears evolved into polar bears as the climate cooled. It is interesting, therefore, that scientists and hunters are increasingly coming across "Pizzly" or "Grolar" bears which, as the names imply, are grizzly and polar bear hybrids. Second generation pizzly bears have also been discovered. Hybridization is one strategy to speed up adaptation, which is important for a polar bear living in a warming environment.

So does this mean that polar bears will evolve back into grizzly bears?

Image of a "pizzly bear" captured by Steven Kazlowski from www.archive.onearth.org

Sources

Alaska Dispatch News

http://www.adn.com/article/20120426/more-polar-grizzly-hybrid-bears-kil…

PBS

dr. dolittle Mon, 12/21/2015 - 11:05

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Weekend Diversion: Punch-Out!!! in real life

esiegel — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 13:55:48 +0000

Weekend Diversion: Punch-Out!!! in real life

"I'm happy to report that everybody whose face I've wanted to punch on Earth has already been punched." -Greg Kinnear

Well, it's finally happened. After the javascript music player I'd been using to share music with you was discontinued, I finally found a new one here. There's no better way to test it out than with Soïg Sibéril's masterful guitar work, as showcased here in his song,

The Jug of Punch/Master Crowley.So enjoy that beautifulness, while I walk you way down memory lane. I grew up during the golden age of nintendo, when Mario, Zelda and Metroid were some of the best ways to spend an afternoon. But one game that had a special place in a little boy's heart was none other than Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!!

Image credit: Nintendo of America, 1987.

Based on two arcade game predecessors, this game put you in the shoes of unnoticed and unskilled boxing novice, Little Mac. You'd work your way up by fighting various european and asian stereotypes; they begin as relatively easy opponents, but progress through tougher, larger, more powerful characters. Each character had strengths, special attacks and secret weaknesses, and it took a combination of know-how and execution to defeat each one.

Image credit: Chris Kohler of Game|Life at Wired, via http://www.wired.com/gamelife/.

When you reach various milestones in the game, you become champion of the circuit you were fighting on, and get rewarded with a cutscene, such as (now-famous) Rocky-esque training montages of your character preparing for the upcoming battles.

Image credit: Matt Jones of http://blogs.edmontonjournal.com/, via Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!!

If you can become champion of the world circuit before losing three times, you make it all the way to the final showdown with then-undefeated-world-champion Iron Mike Tyson. It took many months for me to get to Tyson, and many times getting knocked out before I finally managed to defeat him!

Image credit: screenshot from Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!!, 1987, Nintendo.

This game was one of my favorites, as I'm sure it was for many of you who are anywhere around my age. There have been a number of homage/tributes to it, including these amazing hand-crafted action figures of all the characters, below.

Image credit: action-figure customizer Fugazi (fugazi9676@gmail.com), via http://thefwoosh.com/.

But the coolest tribute I've ever seen was a video imagining Little Mac's comeback against Mr. Sandman, who's the third-to-last character in the NES version and the final character from the original arcade version. I can't believe I've been remiss in sharing this with you for so long, so without further ado, here's Team Awesome's entry from the 2007 Nintendo Short Cuts competition: the Punch-Out!! trailer!

Goosebumps, I tell you, every time. (But I'm a sucker for a good training montage.) It's been six years since I first saw this, and I'd still be excited to see the actual short film of this, were it ever made; it's a stroke of pure genius as far as I'm concerned. In the meantime, the only follow-up I've been able to find is whatever happened to Von Kaiser: I think this is your answer. Hope you enjoyed this bit of silliness as much as I did, and have a great weekend!

esiegel Sat, 08/24/2013 - 09:55

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Here's Your Chance to Help Save the World

grrlscientist — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:30:53 +0000

Here's Your Chance to Help Save the World

tags: 2010 METROPOLIS Next Generation Design Competition, sustainability, environmentalist engineering

Image: METROPOLIS Magazine

Do you have an innovative idea for making existing items in your life work better? Now is your chance to share this innovative idea with the world by entering it into the 2010 METROPOLIS Next Generation Design Competition. They are looking for entries to be sent in to their competition by 29 January 2010.

You must let me know if any of you (dear readers) enter this competition, and you must let me know if you win!

Tags

Green/Frugal Living

2010 METROPOLIS Next Generation Design Competition

Announcement

competition

METROPOLIS Magazine

Does having more competitors lower the motivation to compete?

edyong — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 08:00:39 +0000

Does having more competitors lower the motivation to compete?

Imagine that you're taking a test in a large public hall. Obviously, your knowledge and confidence will determine your score, but could the number of people around you have an influence too? According to psychologists Stephen Garcia from the University of Michigan and Avishalom Tor from the University of Haifa, the answer is yes. They have found that our motivation to compete falls as the number of competitors rises, even if the chances of success are the same.

The simple act of comparing yourself against someone else can stoke the fires of competition. When there are just a few competitors around, making such comparisons is easy but they become more difficult when challengers are plentiful. As a result, the presence of extra contenders, far from spurring us on by adding extra challenge, can actually have the opposite effect. Garcia and Avishalom call this the "N-effect" and they demonstrated it through a number of experiments.

First, they showed that US students tended to score more highly in SAT tests in states where there were fewer people on average at each testing venue. For each state, they compared SAT scores in 2005 with the total number of test-takers divided by the number of venues, and adjusted the figures for factors such as education budget, general performance on the SATs and so on. A similar analysis of scores from the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) revealed the same pattern - a greater density of test-takers led to lower average scores.

Obviously, this is a very crude analysis. For a start, crowded testing venues could also be rife with distractions that could lie behind a dip in performance. Garcia and Avishalom knew that they had to come up with better evidence, so they ran an experiment.

They approached 74 students on their own, and asked them to complete a short quiz as quickly and accurately as possible. They were told that they were up against either 10 or 100 other students, and the top 20% would receive the princely sum of five dollars. Those who were pitched against a hypothetical 9 contenders completed the quiz in 29 seconds - significantly faster than the 33 seconds taken by those who were competing against 99.

This is clear example of the N-effect, of people behaving with different intents depending on how many others they thought they were competing against (none of whom were actually present). Garcia and Avishalom believe that the N-effect depends on people's propensity to compare themselves against their peers. The easier and more tangible those comparisons are, the more fuel there is for competition.

To demonstrate that, they told 50 students that they would have a week to win $100 by adding as many Facebook friends as possible. They found that the students felt more motivated to compete when facing 10 competitors compared to 10,000, and they were also more likely to compare themselves against the others within the smaller contest. The number of competitors predicted the students' motivations to compete, but that association disappeared after adjusting for their tendency to compare themselves with others.

This same experiment allowed them to rule out the possibility that the students were more motivated in the smaller group, simply because they thought the task would be easier. They certainly felt that way (albeit wrongly - in both cases, the prizes went to the top 20% and the students understood that) but it didn't affect their behaviour. Adjusting for this perception of difficulty didn't strongly affect the link between number of competitors and motivation.

Garcia and Avishalom admit that there are probably many other factors that lie behind the N-effect (and you may want to posit your own theories in the comments) but certainly, sizing yourself up against your peers is one of them. It's also unclear how far the effect extends. What are the smallest group sizes where the effect becomes apparent? When groups get larger, do you need larger differences to stimulate the effect? And does the effect apply across all forms of competition?

The answers to these questions will have to wait, but for now, Garcia and Avishalom suggest a couple of areas where the N-effect should be considered. In competitive workplaces (such as sales teams), workers may be more motivated and productive if they work in small branch offices rather than in one large, central location. In the education sector, the N-effect suggests that students may try harder in smaller classrooms (quite apart from the benefits of increased individual attention), and that they may even score slightly higher in exams if they are tested in smaller venues.

Reference: Garcia, S., & Tor, A. (2009). The -Effect: More Competitors, Less Competition Psychological Science DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02385.x

More psychology:

edyong Sun, 06/28/2009 - 04:00

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I've frequently noticed a strong random component on my grades, for individual exams and in overall courses. At least 50% of my undergrad & grad classes I feel my final grade greatly over- or underestimated my skill. Maybe at some level, individuals understand this and so approach competitive situations more as *lotteries* than a measure of mastery. (I think a similar random component always shows up in the few competitive sports I play as well. Sales also seem to be a strongly random vocation.)

If individuals do partially attribute their performance to luck, then one would expect them to try harder when the odds of "winning" are better, and just give up against poor odds. Many other explanations also fit the data at this stage :)

Great post Ed.

That's interesting, especially in the situations it may apply to. Gives me food for thought re my kids.

it seems like its not just competition, but also probability of winning. getting more facebook friends against 10 people, cool youd probably win. against 10,000, who cares you probably wont.

the SAT correlation was more interesting, as this test is supposed to reflect the individual's performance and capabilities more than a ranking/winning. Perhaps a talent contest would be more accurate to isolate one's competitiveness over perception of ranking probabilities (america's got talent?)

I enjoyed your post. I wonder if this N-effect has any correlation to the size of companies or the team sizes inside of companies? Under the assumption that smaller companies typically react to market changes faster than bigger ones, an individual may contribute more when they think they have a better chance at standing out amongst their peers inside a smaller company thereby adding to the competitive advantage of that company. So, in larger companies that align themselves with small nearly autonomous teams, they might be able to activate that N-effect to their advantage in same way that small companies inherently do. Google, IBM, and Proctor&Gamble come to mind as companies that consistently innovate and keep their teams small. They are all insanely profitable too. It might not be related to the N-effect, but I think if the research effectively proves the N-effect exists with test takers, then why not competition in the work place that has much more at stake than a couple bucks?

Does this mean that the smaller the class size the greater the competition? Hence, the pupils tend to work harder and get higher grades?

Is it possible that this phenonmenon is related to the same underlying cause of the bystander effect (people are less likely to help out in an emergency situation the more people that are around), social loafing, or even groupthink? That is there is a diffusion of "responsibility" - so that the larger the group the less individuals feel "responsible" for their behavior?

Competition vs. creativity?

bioephemera — Thu, 07 May 2009 08:50:48 +0000

Competition vs. creativity?

An interesting perspective from education professor John Kitchens:

President Obama, you must understand that mandating standards without equitable funding creates punitive systems of education, and current forms of high-stakes testing too often pit student against student, and eventually citizen against citizen. The struggling economy will likely renew the sense of competition and education for the sake of occupational gain, while a sober look at the number of jobs available in the near future will reveal the futility of these motivations. However entrenched these ideas about education are in the minds of Americans, it diminishes the creative spirit of humanity to think that our ingenuity is dependent upon competition. It also tends to marginalize other important human resources that aren't definitely valued by efficiency or occupational practicality, for example the arts.

Read the entire essay here.

bioephemera Thu, 05/07/2009 - 04:50

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education

Science in Culture & Policy

I really like Prof. Kitchens perspective, being possibly the least competitive person I know. This essay rather resonates with me, as I am trying to make decisions about where I want to transfer to from community college. There is a very good possibility that I could end up in Stanford's psych program, which given my focuses of linguistics and addiction would be the most ideal school possible.

But I am rather concerned about petty bullshit that is fostered by jealousy and competition. I have work to do, ideas to develop - I don't care about the petty bullshit and quite honestly, I don't think it's worth risking my mental stability. Not that I'm doing badly, but even with the meds, it's a matter of degree. I'm a relatively bright person, with a lot to contribute. I am far more interested in making my contribution in conjunction with others who make theirs and creating something greater than the sum of it's parts.

The fact that we stifle so much innovation in the name of petty squabbling and ego-masturbation is absolutely maddening.

Cross-examining a Winner

jklein — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:55:53 +0000

Cross-examining a Winner

Intel Foundation Young Scientist Winner Philip Streich of Platteville, Wisconsin gets grilled by a judge.

jklein Mon, 05/21/2007 - 09:55

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competition

Video

Some Initial Post-Fair Statistics

lbillings — Mon, 21 May 2007 12:25:26 +0000

Some Initial Post-Fair Statistics

Here are some interesting stats, courtesy of Intel:

Out of over 1,500 finalists, there were 547 individual award winners. Of these, 235 were female and 312 were male. 129 were international, and 418 were US winners (including 8 from Puerto Rico and 1 from the Virgin Islands).

Of course, this doesn't mean the US is vastly superior to the rest of the world in pre-college science; rather, since far more US students attend the Fair than international students, the ratio of US/international winners is a bit skewed. The top award-winning countries after the US were China (21 individual award winners), Canada (16), Russia (7), and Chinese Taipei, India, Mexico and Phillippines (each with 6).

In the US, Florida came out on top of all the states with a whopping 90 individual award winners. New York placed a distant second with 60, followed by Oregon with 20. California and Texas both had 19, and host state New Mexico finished with 17 individual award winners.

This is only scratching the statistical surface. Some intrepid data-mining could reveal more interesting patterns. Any volunteers?

lbillings Mon, 05/21/2007 - 08:25

Tags

competition

I was at ISEF and the kid who won an Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award seemed to get almost as many awards as Florida. I think he got an amazing 12 or so awards and they even read his project. Is this a record or what?

Shazam!

lbillings — Fri, 18 May 2007 18:00:06 +0000

Shazam!

Another lightning storm during ISEF 2007

Lightning has blazed in the skies over Albuquerque almost every night here at Intel ISEF 2007, providing a dazzing and dramatic backdrop to the Fair's events as they unfold. But the real electricity today wasn't in the wild blue yonder; it was inside Tingley Coliseum, where the finalists gathered to learn who earned this year's top honors.

Here, fresh from the ceremony, are some highlights from the Grand Awards. The full listing is available here. Look out for more extensive coverage of the winners and their projects in the coming weeks!

Intel Foundation Young Scientist Awards:

Dayan Li, 17, from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland.
"Thrombospondin-1 Switches Nitric Oxide Function from Inhibitory to Stimulatory
for Gene Expression of Human Tumor Endothelial Cell Markers"

Philip Vidal Streich, 16, homeschooled in Platteville, Wisconsin.
"Determining Carbon Nanotubes' Thermodynamic Solubility: The Missing Link
to a Practical Supermaterial?"

Dmitry Vaintrob, 18, from South Eugene High School in Eugene, Oregon.
"The String Topology BV Algebra, Hochschild Cohomology and the Goldman
Bracket on Surfaces"

Dayan, Philip and Dmitry will all receive $50,000 scholarships to the college or university of their choice.

Seaborg SIYSS Award:

George Francis Hotz, 17, from Bergen County Academies in Glen Rock, New Jersey
"I Want a Holodeck"

Dmitry Vaintrob, 18, from South Eugene High School in Eugene, Oregon
"The String Topology BV Algebra, Hochschild Cohomology and the Goldman
Bracket on Surfaces"

Temple Mu He, 18, from Troy High School in Troy, Michigan
"Period Analysis of Cataclysmic Variable X10 and Its Implications on the Origin
of Low States"

George, Dmitry, and Temple are each awarded an all expense-paid trip in December to the Stockholm International Youth in Science Seminar in Sweden, where they will also attend the Nobel Prize ceremonies.

European Union Contest for Young Scientists:

Natnaree Siriwon, 17, Korawich Niyomsatian, 18, and Nathaphon Supokaivanich, 18, from Trium Udom Suksa School in Bangkok, Thailand.
"The Secret in Mimosa's Leaf Folding Pattern"

Natnaree, Korawich, and Nathaphon have won an all expense-paid trip to the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, held in Valencia, Spain this September.

MILSET:

Jacob Charles Loewenstein, 17, from Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns & Rockaway in
Cedarhurst, New York, and Brienne Ashley Kugler, 18, from Jericho Senior High School in Jericho, New York.
"Controlling Metal/Polymer Adhesion: The Enhancement of Microlithography and
the Formation of Nanowires"

Jacob and Brienne have earned a free trip this July to Durban, South Africa, to attend the Expo Science International 2007. There, during ESI 2007, the International Movement for Leisure in Science and Technology (MILSET) will celebrate its 20th anniversary.

lbillings Fri, 05/18/2007 - 14:00

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competition