cwilcox | March 19, 2009I wouldn't say that I'm the funniest person I know - unless, of course, people laughing at you counts as being 'funny'. I'm one of those people who occasionally has good moments, but really, I'm funniest when I don't intend to be. Like that one time I was making fun of a friend's over-exposed cleavage by shouting in a WalMart "Look out folks! She's gonna blow!" only to turn around and see the look of pure horror on the extremely pregnant woman behind me who presumed I was talking about her. I find that I often say things that sound bad out of context.*
Well maybe I can learn to be properly…
cwilcox | March 19, 2009In January, scientists published a paper which found that women's brains reacted differently to sweat from aroused men. This another study showing the mounting evidence that human beings, although unconsciously, communicate information via olfactory cues that our brains are able to interpret. Now another study has shown that such olfactory cues can actually affect our interpretation of other people. The study, published in Psychological Science, has found that women who smelled 'fearful sweat' actually perceived neutral facial expressions as more fearful.
People have thrown around the phrase…
cwilcox | March 18, 2009After watching the video over at Southern Fried Science with the itty-bitty tiger shark babies, I couldn't help but make this week's dose of cute some wittle-baby sharks:
Virgin-borne hammerhead (parthenogenesis plus cuteness = super cool)
Smallest ever baby whale shark
Baby bamboo shark
While their parents might be the top of the food chain, baby sharks are down at the bottom. Just ask this sea lion:
Baby shark snack, c/o NatureFocused.comSharks reproduce relatively slowly, like people and other large species. With shark populations in decline due to overfishing and loss of prey species, it'…
cwilcox | March 17, 2009Picture this: It's Monday morning, and you wake up groggy to your alarm because the incessant traffic and blaring of truck horns from the local highway kept you from getting a good nights' sleep. You'd go back to sleep, but your spouse is already up watching TV and that annoying anchor for the 6 AM news is peppily rambling about how great his week abroad in Hawaii was - like an image of him in a speedo is what you need in your head first thing.
You hop in the shower, if only to drown out the television, and try and remember what exactly it was that you were supposed to do before work this…
cwilcox | March 16, 2009There's something about brain-altering parasites that is just creepy. This is doubly true when the parasite makes the host attempt suicide - which is just what Spinochordodes tellinii, the hairworm, is best at.
Hairworms are free-living aquatic organisms as adults, who, as nematodes, eek out an existence in the mud. As a larvae, however, they're nasty little buggers. Hairworms infect Orthopteran insects (aka grasshoppers and crickets). The adults reproduce in the water, and produce little larvae which are eaten by their unlucky hosts. By the time the little sucker is full grown, it can be…
cwilcox | March 15, 2009Yeah, I know I'm lucky. While most of my readers are struggling to shovel the snow out of their driveways, I'm enjoying yet another weekend of 80 degree heat and lovely sun. So it only seems right to take advantage of the good weather and hit the outdoors.
So, on Saturday, Barry and I visited Historic Spanish Point. It's a local historical/archaeological site in Sarasota, FL. The site covers prehistoric human activity all the way to colonial gardening - and it is beautiful. There are a variety of flowers and other plants all around you. My personal favorite area was the butterfly garden,…
cwilcox | March 12, 2009The Swedish do all the cool studies. I don't know what it is lately - every study I find that piques my interest seems to be of Swedish men.
Anyhow, we've already looked at whether your name affects your income, how about your IQ affecting your longevity?
A study of 1 million (yes, million) Swedish men has found a strong link between IQ scores in adulthood and mortality.
Apparently, one of the major causes of death is unintentional injury - things like poisonings, fire, falls and drownings. It's the leading cause of death for people under 45 years old. The study was done in Sweden because…
cwilcox | March 11, 2009Would a rose by any other name smell just as sweet? Maybe, but it might cost less. It turns out a name might be more important than we'd like to think - it might affect how much you get paid. Swedish scientists have found that simply changing your name from a foreign-sounding one to one a little more local (at least in Sweden) can boost your earnings by an average 8.2%.
It's possible that employers discriminate between employees in a whole host of ways. In America, women earn something around $0.80 for ever $1.00 men earn. Studies have found that dressing a certain way or even wearing perfume…
cwilcox | March 11, 2009If you've ever spent a night or two in a college dorm room in the past twenty years, you're bound to see one thing: drunk college students. They invent amazing methods of intoxication, from throwing ping pong balls into cups of beer to funneling alcohol off of someone's shoe. Nearly 1/3 of college students admit to missing at least one class due to alcohol or drug intoxication. And it doesn't just take a toll on their bodies: college students spend, on average, $900 a year on alcohol - that's twice what they spend on their text books.
So why do students drink so heavily? Research, published…
cwilcox | March 11, 2009How about this for an unlikely but adorable meeting:LA Times Blogs
C'mon - you know you've always wished to see the unbelievable cuteness of both a tiger and a dolphin together. Six Flags Discovery Kingdom staff introduced the six month old tiger cub to the friendly bottlenose dolphins during the tiger's daily walk around the park. Personally, I wish I could have been there - you can just see the intelligence and curiosity in all parties involved. I bet the tiger is trying to figure out how to play with the odd-looking feline on the other side of the glass...
cwilcox | March 10, 2009This is too frickin' cool: Now you see him, now you don't!
It's something to do with mirrors. Mirrors rock.
cwilcox | March 9, 2009In the late '90s, everyone started freaking out about their beef products, especially in Europe. Cows in Britain had started falling ill with a strange fatal neural disease. But not only the cows were getting sick - people who ate infected meat were hit too, dying by way of a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The cow disease became known as Mad Cow for the way in which the infected cows acted. Soon enough it had become epidemic, and people looked for the cause - and found it to be a little protein, called a prion.
Prions are misfolded proteins which cause diseases in animals. But…
cwilcox | March 8, 2009Ok, I'm a little late, so I figured I'd make this one extra-disgusting to cover the time you weren't cringing.
Meet the Screw Worm: Cochliomyia hominivorax. "Hominivorax" means "man-eater", just for your edification.
The screw worm actually isn't a worm at all - it's a fly larvae. Like other maggots, it likes to eat flesh. But unlike other maggots, it doesn't just eat dead flesh. It specializes on eating the nice, healthy flesh surrounding where it hatches, whether that be in an animals' wound or a newborn baby's bellybutton. They can't live off carrion like other maggots do.
So the mother…
cwilcox | March 5, 2009Open Lab 2008 is out! *does a little dance*
You can read more details over at A Blog Around the Clock
For those of you who weren't fans back in '08, Observations of a Nerd (aka me) had a post chosen to be a part of this elite group - so you know it must be good!
I'll soon be adding this somewhere on the site:
cwilcox | March 4, 2009Now this is one big baby! It's the youngest blue whale ever filmed. You know you want to check out the upcoming special this weekend!
Kingdom of the Blue Whale this Sunday, March 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT
cwilcox | March 2, 2009c/o the Telegraph.co.uk, photo by Erik Ruec/o the dailymail.co.uk
A pink bottlenose dolphin has been spotted in Lake Calcasieu, an inland saltwater estuary in Louisiana. The animal has red eyes, indicating that its startling color is due to some form of albinism. So far, it doesn't seem to be overly affected by its coloring, and is, as far as anyone can tell, a healthy, happy young dolphin who just happens to be bright pink.
The striking color might explain how Botos, the amazon river dolphins, ended up pink instead of the usual ranges of grey and blue that most dolphins are. Perhaps a…
cwilcox | March 2, 2009Also check out the awesome new Carnival of the Blue up at Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets.
*Sigh* back to work for me!
cwilcox | March 1, 2009Everyone has that "awkward" phase in their youth. It's too bad ours isn't this cute!
From Flickr
cwilcox | March 1, 2009I want to warn y'all - I'm probably not going to be posting much this week.
I gotta see off Barry's family, have a whole ton of work, get back to exercising off the weight I gained by eating out all week with the rents, visit my grandparents, and all the while try not to rip my hair out while anxiously awaiting the cursed letters from the PhD programs I applied to (that are supposed to inform me this week or so as to whether or not I'm cool enough for school).
In other words, I'm totally swamped.
If you're overwhelmingly bored without my pretty-much-daily ramblings, check out the new edition…
cwilcox | February 28, 2009Oi! I've been poked again with a meme, this time by Daniel. But, I have to admit, it sounded fun.
Here's the deal: to find search terms that get this blog as the top result - obviously not just your title. It's far more entertaining that you'd expect. Here's the best ones I could find:
Dose of cuteSci-Fi Worthy ParasiteChristie is a nerdNational geographic nerdNerd sex smells
And my personal favorites:
Christie is absolute evilNerdy sex with ChristieChristie smells funnyChristie is a sexy nerdChristie: hot and hard to keepChristie boosts fertility
Yeah, I couldn't stop laughing for about 10…