cwilcox | January 5, 2009Many parasites alter their hosts behavior by small manipulations in the brain that go largely unnoticed by the host until its eaten by another. But not all use so much finesse. This week's parasite is probably the rudest as far as mechanisms go - luckily, their hosts are cockroaches, so we don't hold it against them.
I'm talking about the Emerald Cockroach Wasp. As with many parasitic wasps, it needs to inject its eggs into the host to incubate. When the eggs hatch, they'll feed on the host, cocoon, and emerge adult wasps. But most parasitic wasps paralyze their hosts and drag the bodies…
cwilcox | January 5, 2009You may have seen the proof before. Roughly speaking, it goes like this:
girls = time x money (because girls are time and money*)
time = money (proverbial cliche) therefore:
girls = money2 Then, since
money = evil1/2 (generally credited to The Bible, I Timothy 6:10), THEREFORE:
girls =( evil1/2)2, or girls = |evil|
However, it has recently come to my attention that the assumption that "money = evil" may not be entirely accurate. Indeed, according to Chinese proverb:
time > money
Subsituting this into the proof, we find that girls are not, in fact, the root of all evil, but…
cwilcox | January 4, 2009Well, the time has come folks - The Open Laboratory 2008 winners have been announced. The Open Laboratory is a publication of the best of scientific blogging throughout the year. After a long and arduous process, the judges have narrowed the extensive list of entries down to a mere 50 blog posts to publish. And guess what?
OBSERVATIONS OF A NERD MADE THE CUT!!
That's right! My post, Having some fun with evolution is to be published among the best of them. Not to be too nerdy, but...
W00t!
So I guess the year isn't starting off too badly over here. Happy 2009 and cheers to another year of…
cwilcox | January 3, 2009A spaniel adopted a litter of orphaned baby bunnies.
Click the picture above to see a video of the ridiculous cuteness.
cwilcox | January 2, 2009OK, so I wouldn't encourage everyone to do this, because then we'd pollute our oceans too much, but this guy's art is really interesting. The artist, Jason de Caires Taylor, uses sculptures to create artificial reefs. The hopes? To "promote hope and recovery, and underline our need to understand and protect the natural world."
Of course, I have to wonder if in a thousand years or something, with coral all over them, how will they look? And, if you can still see the human features, isn't some poor diver going to get really, really freaked out? Heck, even knowing their just art, I might get…
cwilcox | January 1, 2009I'm often reminded of what Rich Cook said about the nature of the universe. Sure, he wrote about programming, but the principle stands in all fields.
Here are a few perfect examples.
#1. A man has fled the country (or "willingly relocated to south america to help the poor") due to legal issues with his plastic surgery practice. Sure, that sounds normal enough, until you hear the issue: he was turning human fat into biodiesel (which, apparently, is against the law in California - something about medical waste and fueling vehicles). The Beverly Hills doctor, one Craig Alan Bittner, claimed…
cwilcox | December 31, 2008Those reading my nerdy gifts posts #1 and #2 might have noticed there was supposed to be a #3... OK, so this post is a bit past the holiday shopping time, but to my credit, I got busy with the whole holidays thing. So anyhow, here, though a bit belated, are some good nerdy stocking stuffers:
What scientist doesn't want a voo-doo Albert Einstein keychain for extra smart luck? That, and he's just so CUTE!
Click on the title or this link to see the rest of the nerdy stocking stuffers!
Who doesn't want a pen that also functions as a USB drive and a Laser pointer? Of course, they're perfect for…
cwilcox | December 30, 2008I couldn't resist stealing this image from Zooborns for my weekly dose of cute:
How can you not love a naked Aardvark?!
cwilcox | December 30, 2008To close 2008, this meme came from It's Alive! via GrrlScientist. 100 unusual experiences - let's see how I do... * means I want to!
Started my own blog
Slept under the stars
Played in a band
Visited Hawaii- Hell, I lived there.
Watched a meteor shower
Given more than I can afford to charity
Been to Disneyland/world - World.
Climbed a mountain
* Held a praying mantis
Sung a solo
* Bungee jumped
* Visited Paris - Does anywhere in France Count?
* Watched lightning at sea
Taught myself an art from scratch
Adopted a child
Had food poisoning
* Walked to the…
cwilcox | December 29, 2008I love it when I stumble upon a study that I really wish I'd thought of. I'm not a jealous researcher - I don't wish I'd sequenced the GFP gene before everyone so that I got a Nobel Prize instead. I don't wish I'd made some significant breakthrough in my field. No, I wish I'd thought of this first: Bees on Cocaine.
I mean, seriously? Who thinks of these things?
Honey Bee... hitting the nose candy?
Anyhow, a group of scientists (including a team of very lucky undergraduates) looked at how honey bees reacted to being fed a little Big C. Apparently, there was speculation previously that…
cwilcox | December 28, 2008As the holidays come to a close, we generally bemoan the large quantities of junk food we've eaten and all the money we spent. However, there are some reasons we shouldn't be so begrudging of our holiday cheer. Quite a bit of the things we do just for the holidays aren't as bad for us as we think they are.
For example, we shouldn't feel so bad about eating all those candy canes. It turns out that peppermint has quite a few health benefits, at least according the the National Institute of Medicine. Most relate to the stomach and digestive system, but there is weak evidence for improvements to…
cwilcox | December 27, 2008One of the largest groups of parasites, the trematodes, have all kinds of strategies to trasmit between hosts. The genus Microphallus causes its hosts like shrimp, to swim upwards or otherwise endanger themselves so that they are eaten by the parasites next host - birds.
Sure, it looks harmless.
But perhaps the coolest trematode is Dicrocoelium dendriticum. It has a very unusual lifecycle, which is between grazing animals like sheep, snails, and ants. The adults in the sheep's liver reproduce and shed eggs into the feces. The eggs are then picked up by snails, which apparently are fairly…
cwilcox | December 25, 2008In an increasingly digital age, one researcher looked at the differential effect of reading print versus online, which seems like a logical choice. However, she found that online reading is less rewarding - and perhaps effective - than reading printed material. The reasons for this include less physical manipulation of the computer and the flashy multimedia on the pages.
There needs to be more consideration, she thus argues, as we integrate more and more technology into the classrooms and our daily life. So it might be better for you to go read the newspaper than to scan the internet and read…
cwilcox | December 23, 2008Even in Orangutans, apparently.
Now, when I read the headline "Orangutans trade favors," I thought the article was very different... Oh well.
Regardless, what the study found was that orangutans learned the fairness of trade and how to get the most of a situation. Researchers gave two orangutans a set of tokens. One token, the primates learned, gave themselves a banana. Another gave the other orangutan a banana. At first, one orangutan, was very generous to her partner, and willingly traded in tokens to give him treats. When she realized, however, he was less giving, she stopped. He, in turn…
cwilcox | December 21, 2008You know, in some ways, this explains a lot.
A new study from the American Journal of Public Health reveals that kids with higher IQs tend to drink more when they get older. The association is particularly true for smart women. The likelihood of developing a drinking problem if one were well above average intelligence increased 1.38 times in women and 1.17 times in men.
Now, to be fair, the kids who were just a bit above normal didn't have this problem. It's only the real geniuses that were prone to drinking. So if your kid's just a little smarter than everyone else, that's cool.
But if your…
cwilcox | December 18, 2008Cheetahs are truly some of the most amazing animals on the planet. It's the fastest land animal, accelerating from 0 to 70 mph faster than even high-end sports cars and maxing out around 75 mph. In much of its home range, conservationists have been fighting relentlessly to bring back population numbers from excessive hunting and territory loss. The species, once in the hundreds of thousands before 1800, was down to less than 12,500 by 1980. And these efforts, largely, have been successful in rebounding the big cat's numbers. Unfortunately, it may be all for naught.
You see, cheetahs faced a…
cwilcox | December 18, 2008Now that I have survived the frigid north and have returned to the real world where there is electricity, the sun is shining and there's no such thing as ice storms, I can return to providing you the most up-to-date and important science news and such from around the world. I know, you're all so excited!
So personally, I've been spending the past day or so getting myself all jolly for the holidays. Of course, we're talking tree decorating, gift wrapping and the lovely sound of holiday pop songs to set the mood.
Apparently, some researchers from Loch Lomond Sea Life Centre in Balloch,…
cwilcox | December 12, 2008Stuck in really cold weather without power for the next few days. Like, monday or later. Shoot me if you happen to be here in hell. I'll try and blog again sometime soon... ish.
cwilcox | December 10, 2008Mind Control. Body-Snatchers. They sound like they're straight out of a science fiction novel, but the truth is parasites have been ahead of us in manipulatory technology for eons. They're the best of the best at making another species bend to their will. Here are some examples of some science facts that sound like they belong in science fiction - all courtesy of your everyday parasite.
So, since I already have a weekly does of cute, I figure I'll balance it out with a weekly dose of something that's about as far from cute as I can find - a really awesome parasite.
The most familiar example…
cwilcox | December 9, 2008Women know this is true. Men know it, too, I think, they just don't want to admit it. Now it's supported scientifically. New research out of the University of Michigan suggests that the economic crisis could really be the fault of you horny dogs - so there!
The study sought to determine if men's financial habits, aka overspending and conspicuous consumption, were related to his desire to impress possible mates. They compared data taken from men aged 18-45 about their past, current, and desired future physical encounters with their degree of financial consumption.
"It gives an ultimate…