Inside the Asylum

This is kind of interesting. Previous experiments had seemed to confirm that hyper-aggressive males got more sex, cutting out the less aggressive ones, but this was only because experiments were conducted under conditions where the females couldn't move away from the area.

However, when the researchers opened gates between the chambers so they were all connected and the insects could range more freely, things changed. Females left areas where they were harassed and congregated in regions of the tank that had only non-aggressive males. As a group, those males had significantly more successful matings than did the hyperaggressive males...

"The naive view of Darwinian evolution is that it always favors the most savage, brutal and selfish behaviors. It doesn't -- and this is one example of that. In nature, groups of cooperative individuals are more successful than groups of selfish individuals."

OK, we're talking about water striders, but it certainly sounds like it might have broader significance. It would be interesting to see a study of human female mating choices comparing situations where the women felt like they had little chance to leave an area, compared to females who could easily relocate. Would the ease of female relocation have an impact on male behavior as well?

Those filthy disease ridden primates (homo sapiens) having been spreading pestilence left right and center. First they infect poor innocent pigs, and now a cat has caught swine flu. In Egypt they slaughtered the entire pig population because they were afraid they'd spread swine flu (with a bunch of unforeseen consequences which shows they didn't listen to Heinlein's warning about the dangers of indiscriminately killing hogs (and dragons)). When everyone was worried about Chicken Flu, they slaughtered two million chickens in Holland at least 1.4 million in Hong Kong, plus at least 80,000 in India, another 35,000 in England and who knows how many world-wide? Well, now those dirty primates have started spreading a flu virus across species, what are we going to do about it? Filthy creatures.

One of the "holy grails" of the space program is to successfully built a space elevator. Basically, you get a cable (a very strong cable) that extends from the surface of the earth far enough out into space so that natural forces allow it to just hang there on its own. Then you run an elevator up and down it. Hey presto, you've solved the problem of having to use rockets to get into orbit. Naturally enough, there are a heck of a lot of engineering problems that will need to be solved before anything like it can be built. That's why it's encouraging to see that people are working on it, and even making a little progress.

LaserMotive of Seattle qualified for at least $900,000 in the $2 million NASA-backed Space Elevator Games, which began Wednesday at the Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base. LaserMotive's vehicle climbed 2,953 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) in just over four minutes and then repeated the feat.

Now wouldn't that be something to see a space elevator within my life time. Judging from NASA's progress in the last 40 years, I doubt there'll be anything like it until ... well, my grandkids time, even if we're lucky.

Yes, that's right, humans recently infected a number of pigs.

The U.S. Agriculture Department announced last week that six pigs from the Minnesota State Fair contracted the new H1N1 virus over the summer, the first report of pigs catching the virus in the United States. The hogs likely got it from fairgoers, officials said.

Damn humans, spreading pestilence to innocent pigs. It should be called Human Flu, not Swine Flu.
[Update] There's hope yet that we may be able to protect innocent pigs from those disease ridden primates.

An international group of scientists has decoded the DNA of the domestic pig, research that may one day prove useful in finding new treatments for both pigs and people, and perhaps aid in efforts for a new swine flu vaccine for pigs.

Hmmm. This seems like an excuse for another Muppets clip.

Tune in next week ... "NOOO!!!!" ... OK then don't. See if I care.

Conspiracy theorists' have been trying to disprove the moon landings for years. Now NASA responds (sort of) by releasing a whole bunch of cool satellite images that show the landers, tracks, flags, instruments etc. that they left behind.

Of course this wouldn't be necessary if NASA had actually done anything decent by now. Trips to the moon should be old-hat by now, not ancient history. I remember when I was young, maybe about 13, I looked out my window at the moon. I had a yearning sadness as I stared at it, knowing that I'd probably never get to go there (or anywhere else in space.) I can't tell you how much more sad I would have felt if you'd told me that in the next three decades, no human would have done so much as leave Earth orbit. I mean, what the heck have we been mucking around at? Where is the moon base? Where are the mining stations in the asteroid belt? Where are the orbital solar power stations? Where is the 2001: A Space Odyssey space station? All we've got is an almost finished rather pathetic little international space station that they're already talking about abandoning. We've landed a few feeble things on Mars. Oh yes, and a few probes to different parts of the Solar System. Probes ... hmmm. I think a few properly applied probes to politicians and NASA bureaucrats might have led to a little more of where we should be, and a little less of, "have we accomplished so little in so many years?"

Believe it or not, but it looks like a third of all dinosaurs face imminent doom. Is it a meteorite? No, it's paleontologists:

John "Jack" Horner of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University in Bozeman... suggests that one-third of all named dinosaur species may never have existed, but are merely different stages in the growth of other known dinosaurs.

Hey, my kid is a monkey, and I'm not the only one who feels that way about small children. Many teenagers aren't sapient enough to be called Homo Sapiens.

There's a sort-of photographic essay entitled From sanctuary to snake pit: the rise and fall of asylums. Should we Inside the Asylum feel insulted? Worried? And is being a snake-pit necessarily a bad thing? So what's it all really about?

Christopher Payne visited and photographed 70 such institutions across the US for his book Asylum: Inside the closed world of state mental hospitals, which documents how their fall from grace reflects changing attitudes to mental illness

Mental illness? Hah. Now I am insulted.

Scientists got people to play Doom, and then tried to get them to dream about playing Doom, and found out that dreaming about playing Doom made you better at playing Doom. I kid you not.

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has ruled that aliens (from other planets) are not "human" and therefore have no standing in court, as only a "human being" or "corporation" may bring an action. Specifically, a Martian has no standing in court, and therefore cannot sue another party. Wow. Now would be a very bad time for us to make first contact. Close down SETI, and whatever you do, don't tell the Vulcans! (Via Instapundit)

Selenium is interesting stuff. It's toxic in large quantities, but seems to be essential for cellular life (which means all life.) Too much and you die, too little and life can't exist. It's most closely related to sulfur, and with an atomic number of 34, it's higher on the periodic table than iron, copper, nickle, zinc, etc. Europeans tend to get less of it in their diets than do Americans, because the main source in human diets is grain, which picks it up from the soil. Since there's less in European dirt than in the American variety, there's less selenium in the grains Europeans consume. (I'm not sure about other regions, since the study read only compared America and Europe. I wonder if this might be due to the fact that European soil has been intensively farmed for a far longer period than in North America? If this is the case, you'd expect Asians to suffer a similar shortage, while Australians would be even better off. I've no idea if it's true or not.)

As with vitamin D, it's also one of those things that the more you study it, the more you realize that it plays a really important role in human health. A recent study concludes that selenium plays an important role in prevent bowel cancer, and (I suspect) pretty much all cancers, because

one function [of selenium] is enhancing the triggering of "apoptosis" - a vital process that allows cells to kill themselves if they detect an error. "When a cell realises that something has gone wrong it can trigger its own death so the cell doesn't become a problem," said Prof Young, head of the Flinders Centre for Cancer Prevention and Control at Adelaide's Flinders University. "What the selenium does is just make the cell better at perceiving that it has to kill itself."

There is a major down-side though. If you take too much:

"your hair falls our, your nails fall out, you get kidney problems and you can potentially get problems with glucose and insulin control too."

Still the study seems to indicate that an increase in the recommended daily dose is warranted, from the current 50 micrograms to about 150 micrograms. What's the best way to get it? Eat four brazil nuts a day. With Christmas coming up, there's never been a better excuse to stock up on nuts. I'm not into health fads, but next time I'm in the supermarket I'm going to buy a bag.

[Update] I did some digging on selenium levels, and New Zealand has a particular deficiency. That kills stone dead my speculation that it might be to do with intensity of farming, as NZ didn't even have people until (perhaps) a thousand years ago, and intensive farming only in the last couple of centuries. Australian soil is also deficient.

[Further update]. Oh great ... maybe I'll have to hold off on the brazil nuts. Another study has linked the incidence of diabetes to high levels of selenium. They're still recommending people in selenium deficient countries take supplements, but people in the US should just maintain a regular healthy diet. Oh well ... I'm sure cashew nuts must be healthy. I'll have them instead.

This robot was on display at Gitex 2009 in Dubai, or perhaps we should say, "he was performing" at Gitex. Titan the robot does impressions. Robots just keep getting more human (or more bug-like).

First there were robots imitating bugs and animals, now there's a boat copying the dolphin. It makes sense ... the natural world has had a long time to test different designs.


Brought to from morecoolpictures.com.

Particularly with regards to the last one, has it ever occurred to you that cockroaches might be alien space probes? It would certainly explain why they're so indestructible! Speaking of which, here's a cockroach controlled robot. ***Shudder***

A new electric car is about to hit the market in England. It's called the Lightning.
Here's how the company describes it:

Forget electric cars that compromise the driving experience.
For the sheer thrill of immediate, powerful acceleration and with a top speed capability of more than 130mph, the electric Lightning will be a difficult proposition to beat.
Car ............................................ 0-60mph .................. Power
Jaguar 5.0 V8 XK Coupe .................... 5.2 Secs .................. 380 bhp
Electric Lightning GT sub .................. 5.0 Secs .................. 500+ bhp

The bad news? It's going to cost about 120,000 pounds. Oh well.

It's not a joke:

Starting in 2010, an international crew of six will simulate a 520-day round-trip to Mars, including a 30-day stay on the martian surface. In reality, they will live and work in a sealed facility in Moscow, Russia, to investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration space mission. ESA is looking for European volunteers to take part.

There are, however, a few restrictions that will eliminate many people.

Candidates should be aged 20-50, motivated, in good health and no taller than 185 cm. They should speak one of the working languages: English and Russian. Candidates must have a background and work experience in medicine, biology, life support systems engineering, computer engineering, electronic engineering or mechanical engineering.

Possibly even more restricting, and eliminating me (even if I wasn't already out after the above list):

The candidates' nationality and residence is restricted to ESA Member States participating in ELIPS (Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Norway, The Netherlands, Sweden and Canada).

Oh well, maybe I'll qualify for the next mission to Mars?

The announcement that another 32 planets have been discovered brings the grand total to about 400. The team says they expect to be able to announce another 30 or so in another six months. So far, we still haven't found an "earth" but we're getting close. Six of these new planets are classified as "super-earths" meaning they amount to less than 10x the mass of our planet.

This is way beyond my level of understanding, but something tells me it's going to be important.

The magnetic equivalent of electricity, dubbed "magnetricity", has been demonstrated experimentally for the first time. Just as the flow of electrons produces electrical current, individual north and south magnetic poles have been observed to roam freely, generating magnetic "current".

Just as quantum mechanics (another topic way beyond my understanding) revolutionized modern technology, I have a feeling that we're going to end up seeing magnetric devices in common applications one day. "Magnetrics" ... or will it be "magnetronics"? "magnetrical"? There are so many words in every day use that would be utterly unfamiliar to someone even a few decades ago ... will this enter people's standard vocabulary just like "electronics"?

This kind of proves the point made earlier: any news concerning there being more polar ice isn't newsworthy, such as the fact the Antarctic melt was the least ever recorded. On the other hand, a group of scientists with a vested interest in proving global warming announce a future projection that there'll be no Arctic ice in 10 years during the summer, and hey, what do you know, it's headline news around the world. Let's hammer home the point:

''With a larger part of the region now first-year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable,'' said Professor Peter Wadhams, part of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, which analysed the data. ''The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone.''

You see, the fact that something is "likely" and has "potential" is more newsworthy than something that is an actual, you know, fact. Panic mongering follows:

Martin Sommerkorn of the World Wildlife Fund said the Arctic sea holds a central position in earth's climate system. ''Such a loss of Arctic sea ice cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic,'' he said. ''This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme … weather changes.''

You know ... one of those really accurate models (with a zero percent success rate in predicting future climatic activity) has shown there could be a powerful massive substantial extreme impact. Panic everyone! Oh, and don't forget to donate money to the WWF to avert this powerful massive substantial extreme emergency.

Oh, you don't believe me about the vested interests of the team announcing the findings? Aside from the obvious (continued research grants, riding the gravy train at Copenhagen, etc., and lots of juicy high profile media coverage), there's this:

Fresh off the ice! Pen Hadow and Ann Daniels available to speak at your event... Pen and Ann are established speakers on the international circuit with clients that have included M&S, BP, BA, IBM, Vodafone, NatWest and Bank of America

The website doesn't mention the speakers' fee ... so presumably they appeared for all these companies to speak gratis, out of the goodness of their hearts and a firm belief in the righteousness of their cause ... And if you believe that, I've got a second-hand car to sell you.