The Lighter Side of Science

Serious Science Earns (Irreverent) Honors

Posted on by Sara Klink

Last night, scientists were agog with anticipation as the Ig Noble awards, now in its 25th year, were presented to ten new winners. The purpose of the awards was to highlight “Research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK”. Last year, my favorite was the award given for research showing cured pork could be used to stop nosebleeds. I enjoy injecting that fact in conversation just add to the mystique that is bacon and salt pork. Not only is it delicious but good for you too! So what did 2015 bring to the table?

There was information on basic bodily functions (nearly every mammal takes about 21 seconds to urinate regardless of size), answer age-old questions (yes, you can [partially] unboil an egg but no word about which came first chicken or egg), medical diagnostic techniques (take a potential appendicitis case, drive them over a bumpy road and see how much pain results), the Jurassic era (chickens are induced to “walk like a dinosaur” with the addition of toilet plunger on its rear end), language edification (“huh?” is a universal word), economic solutions (pay police officers more not to take bribes), business risk taking (business leaders take more risks after experiencing natural disasters that don’t personally affect them), reproductive curiosity (could one historical man have fathered 888 children in his lifetime?), pain threshold exploration (one group of researchers created an insect sting pain index while one individual challenged himself to experience a bee sting on 25 different parts of his tender body) and the benefits of kissing (yes, someone studied the consequences of “intimate interpersonal activities”).

These awards encompass quite a range of research. The ceremony itself involved paper plane throwing, but only at designated times, an opera focused on the year’s theme of Life, and previous Nobel and Ig Noble winners in the audience. Award winners joined in the fun too as one of the winners came on stage wearing a toilet seat on his head. Can you guess what was the focus of his research? And of course, livestreaming video of the ceremony and live tweeting from @Improbresearch for those who could not make it.

You can read all about the award winners with links to their research at Improbable Research.

As for picking a favorite from 2015 award winners, I am debating between the induced dino-chicken and the appendicitis diagnosis method. Which was your favorite?

Friday Cartoon Fun: Is It Drawn or Is It Real?

Posted on by Sara Klink

I always enjoy Ed Himelblau’s cartoons, but one that makes me chuckle every time I see it is the following:

Copyright Ed Himelblau.

I am sure our readers that enjoy coffee can empathize.

Recently, our Swiss branch had fun with a number of the cartoons from our Cartoon Lab archive and recreated the cartoon in real life:
Real-life recreation of Ed Himelblau's cartoon.
What do you think?

Back to school!

Posted on by Sarah Dewbre

Kindergarten teacher and children looking at bird's nest in librBack to school! We’re experiencing a cold snap this week, and my kids are complaining that it shouldn’t be this cold on the last week of summer! I agree, but I’m so excited that school is back! I’m a full-time working mom, but the stresses of summer are hard. My kids aren’t on schedules, there is always some party/event/BBQ, and trying to fit in a summer vacation. I’m tired just thinking about it! Especially in Wisconsin, where we don’t have the best weather in the winter so we try to soak it all up in the summer.

As we are getting back into routines, I’m working on setting up some ground rules so our school year isn’t as hectic this year as previous years. Summer has been a free for all at our house, so the adjustment might be rough, but my kids do much better on routines. Continue reading “Back to school!”

The Volcano Beneath our Feet

Posted on by Kelly Grooms
Photo credit: Kelly Grooms
Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park. Photo credit: Kelly Grooms

This summer my family and I vacationed on one of the world’s largest active volcanoes. We weren’t alone. Every year over three million people visit this super volcano.

Yellowstone National Park covers almost 3,500 square miles in the northwest corner of Wyoming (3% of the park is in Montana and 1% in Idaho). The park is famous for its hydrothermal features, including the Old Faithful Geyser and vivid hot springs such as the Grand Prismatic Spring.

The park’s hydrothermal system is the visible expression of the immense Yellowstone volcano; they would not exist without the underlying partially molten magma body that releases tremendous heat. National Park Service website

Photo Credit: Nathan Grooms
Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park. Photo Credit: Nathan Grooms

These features are all visible reminders of the immense volcano that exists beneath the surface.  Recently, a team of seismologists discovered a reservoir of partly molten rock 12–28 miles beneath Yellowstone National Park. This video from Science 360 describes the discovery and why scientists are interested in it. It is important to note that this discovery does not mean that there is new activity or that the volcano under the park is closer to erupting. It does mean that scientist now have a better picture of the underground “plumbing”.

Summer Friday Blog: Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago

Posted on by Kathryn Doers

wizardworldLet’s put a little fiction in our science this week and take a look at the upcoming Wizard World Comic Con in Chicago. It’s one of the biggest in the U.S., typically drawing an crowd of around 50,000 throughout the weekend. This year the Chicago event takes place August 20th through August 23rd at the Donald E. Stephenson Center in Rosemont, Illinois.

This will be my fourth year attending Wizard World Chicago, and it definitely won’t be my last. It’s more manageable than the famous Comic Con in San Diego, but still big enough to spend the whole weekend wandering aisles and aisles of geeky treasures. There’s no conceivable way to get bored with celebrity autographs, hundreds of booths for browsing, and dozens of panels about pop culture. The people watching’s pretty entertaining, too.

My favorite part of any fan convention is the costumes. Some people spend months making elaborate pieces of armor from foam or painting a perfect replica of Captain America’s shield. Those are the die-hard fans, but most people dress up in some way, even if it’s just a T-Shirt with their favorite super hero printed on it. I love scanning the crowd and catching a glimpse of a character from one of my favorite TV shows. The atmosphere is fun and welcoming for all types of people and all levels of geek. Even entry level.

As comic cons and super heroes become increasingly popular, the guest list for Wizard World Chicago gets longer and more impressive each year. It’s not just for nerds anymore! Some of television and film’s biggest stars make appearances at conventions, and this year Chicago gets Jeremy Renner from Marvel’s The Avengers. You can call him Hawkeye. His autograph line will probably be the longest, people waiting hours for their chance to meet and exchange a few words with him. I’m particularly excited to see Nathan Fillion (Castle, Firefly), Norman Reedus (Walking Dead), Billie Piper (Doctor Who), and Burt Reynolds (no references needed). Meanwhile, upstairs the legendary Bruce Campbell will host his first annual Horror Fest. This year’s show will be star-packed, that’s for sure.

 

Summer Friday Blog: La Brea Tar Pits in the Heart of Los Angeles

Posted on by Kathryn Doers

Hyrophilius sp. fossils from La Brea Tar Pits (photo credit: Archaedontosaurus Wikimedia commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hydrophilus_-_La_Brea_Tar_Pits.jpg
Hyrophilius sp. fossils from La Brea Tar Pits (photo credit: Archaedontosaurus Wikimedia commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hydrophilus_-_La_Brea_Tar_Pits.jpg
Urban Southern California is one of the last places I associate with archaeological digs. It’s better known for the Hollywood sign and expansive mansions. In reality, central Los Angeles is home to the La Brea Tar Pits, one of the most famous tar deposits in the North America. Situated just south of Beverly Hills and nestled between busy streets is a bubbling lake of black sludge that offers paleontologists important information about the past.

For tens of thousands of years, natural asphalt has oozed from the earth in this part of California. Crude oil seeps up along the 6th Street Fault from the Salt Lake Oil Field, forming pools topside in several locations in the park. The oil becomes sticky asphalt as lighter fractions of petroleum evaporate or biodegrade, though methane gas emerges in uneven bursts and makes the pools look like they’re boiling.

This California tar has preserved the bones of many prehistoric creatures and pieces of plant life, giant and tiny, mostly from the last glacial period. Paleontologists have excavated saber-tooth cats, dire wolves, giant ground sloths, and a nearly intact mammoth nicknamed Zed. When covered with leaves, dirt, and water, the land became a snare for any animal that wandered too close. Predators then approached the dying prey in hopes of an easy meal, only to become stuck themselves. It was a cruel cycle, so Los Angeles fenced it all in to save today’s wildlife from meeting the same fate. A 2006 dig unearthed six dire wolves, and archaeologists were then able to confidently infer that the creatures hunted in packs like their modern relatives. The on-site George C. Page Museum is dedicated to researching and displaying the animals that have died in the Los Angeles tar.

One lone human specimen has emerged from the La Brea Tar Pits, a partial female skeleton dubbed the La Brea Woman. The remains of the roughly 25-year-old female were first discovered in 1914, and date back around 10,000 years.

Sometimes black tar trickles onto the streets and flowerbeds, so at least one a week the city has to clean and drain the sewers beneath the roads. Playing host to a prehistoric landmark isn’t easy. When I lived out in Los Angeles I rode my bike past the tar pits every day, and I always caught a whiff of fresh asphalt or rotten eggs. It took me a while to realize it was the tar pits, not some nearby construction.

Check out this crash course in fossil excavation from the official La Brea Tar Pits & Museum website:

Summer Friday Blog: Journey into Outer Space for the Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower

Posted on by Kathryn Doers

11156716_lThis week we travel to outer space, the Final Frontier, to catch a glimpse of the Southern Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower. But don’t worry, you don’t have to leave your backyard. Just grab a blanket and find a place without too much light pollution, and you’ll be able to catch a glimpse of this worldwide phenomenon.

The Southern Delta Aquarid Meteor Shower is an annual summer occurrence that spans July and August, but this weekend marks its nominal peak in activity. From July 26th through August 1st, give or take a couple of days because nature is lovably fickle, we can expect a maximum hourly rate of 15-20 meteors. That might not sound like much, but a special angle of atmospheric entry gives Delta Aquarid meteors long, lingering trails that seriously set this shower apart.

Most meteor showers are created by comets. As a comet circles our Sun, it sheds a rocky dust stream along its orbit. When Earth travels through this space litter, the result is a meteor shower. Astronomers believe that the Southern Delta Aquarids originated from the breakup of two sungrazing comets, Marsden and Kracht.

Shooting stars, as they’re lovingly called, can appear anywhere in the sky, but if you trace the tails it becomes clear that each shower has a definite epicenter. The showers are named after these radiant points, taking the name of the constellation dominating that particular region of the sky. The Delta Aquarids, as you can probably guess, pay homage to the constellation Aquarius. Look for the star Skat within the “water bearer” constellation, the point where Delta Aquari meteors are born.

For every time zone and all continents, the hours between midnight and dawn will be the best time to glimpse these brief celestial bodies. Those of you in the southern hemisphere and southerly latitudes in the northern hemisphere will get a better show, as is typical with this particular shower, though all observers are bound to see activity. Unfortunately, this year the waning crescent moon rises around midnight and will drown out dimmer meteors. But we’ll still see the big ones, and those are arguably the most thrilling.

Meteors are really just bits of interplanetary debris traveling tens of thousands of miles per hour, igniting as they vaporize in Earth’s upper atmosphere, but they sure are pretty. For a preview, take a look at this video of last year’s meteor shower, filmed August 2 by Canadian Geographic.

Wellness at Work: Pedal to Petal Summer Bike Event and Other Initiatives

Posted on by Roberta Braga

Corporate wellness programs have been discussed in the media over the past few years, and as I read more about them this week, I discovered that the tangible benefits of such programs are vast, ranging from blood pressure and cholesterol management, to stress reduction and mental wellness. I also came across articles claiming wellness initiatives don’t encourage healthy behavior beyond the requirements, or can be an invasion of privacy when employees are required to submit to comprehensive health screenings. Do corporate wellness programs really work? In my experience, they are indispensable. Wellness programs can serve as motivational starting points for employees interested in leading healthier lifestyles and are thus a very positive component of a company’s culture. In my case, the programs offered at Promega greatly facilitated my personal efforts to become more active and mindful.

Bike PicAs many Wisconsinites can attest, staying active in Wisconsin during the winter months can be incredibly challenging. Even walking from your car to the gym might cause your eyes to water and fingers to go numb from the cold. It is no wonder that when given the chance to snuggle up on a warm couch or to go for a run in the brisk weather this winter, I chose the former. Continue reading “Wellness at Work: Pedal to Petal Summer Bike Event and Other Initiatives”

A Warm Body in the Mesopelagic: The Endothermic Moonfish

Posted on by Kelly Grooms

If you think back to biology class, you most likely learned that endothermy, or the ability to maintain a body favorable body temperature (i.e., different than the ambient temperature), was a unique characteristic of mammals and birds. This ability sets “warm blooded” animals apart from “cold blooded” ectotherms such as reptiles and fish.

The warm blooded opah
The warm blooded opah. Image from:USA NOAA Fisheries Southwest Fisheries Science Center. https://swfsc.noaa.gov/ImageGallery/Default.aspx?moid=4724

For fish, one of the biggest challenges to maintaining an elevated body temperature is convective heat loss in the gill lamellae.  There are a few fish species that are able to retain some of the heat generated internally, but these “regional endotherms” are only able to increase the temperature of specific areas or tissues.  Regional endotherms limit the heat loss with retia mirabilia, which are a complex network of blood vessels that act as counter-current heat exchangers that warm the cold arterial blood as it returns from the gills. However, these retia have only been found associated with specific muscle groups and organs, and as a result the rest of the fish’s body remains at ambient temperature.

A silver and crimson-colored, tire-sized, fish called the opah (Lampris guttatus), or moonfish, is changing what scientist thought they knew about endothermy in fish (1).  The opah lives in the cold, dim waters of the ocean’s mesopelagic zone hundreds of feet below the surface. Unlike other fish at these depths, the opah is a fast swimming, agile predator.  Its secret is retia located inside the gills. The location of the retia means that the opah can maintain an elevated body temperature throughout its body, and a warmer body temperature means it can swim faster and react more quickly than both its prey and other predators.

I don’t think that we should throw out all our biology text books and start rewriting descriptions of what defines a fish, but the discovery of the warm blooded opah should remind us that what we know is just a small drop compared to what remains to be discovered.

Reference

  1. Wenger, N. et al. (2015) Whole-body endothermy in a mesopelagic fish, the opah, Lampris guttatus. Science 348, 786–9.