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Scary chupacabras: Villain or victim?

Scary chupacabras: Villain or victim?

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

As Halloween approaches, tales of monsters and creepy crawlies abound. Among the most fearsome in places like Mexico and Puerto Rico is the legendary beast known as the chupacabras. 

But the real fiend is not the hairless, fanged animal purported to attack and drink the blood of livestock; it's a tiny, eight-legged creature that turns a healthy, wild animal into a chupacabras, says University of Michigan biologist Barry OConnor.
Warmer Arctic probably permanent

Warmer Arctic probably permanent

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

The signs of climate change were all over the Arctic this year - warmer air, less sea ice, melting glaciers - which probably means this weather-making region will not return to its former, colder state, scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported on Thursday.

"It's a bit of a paradox where you have overall global warming and warming in the atmosphere (that) actually can create some more of these winter storms," said Jim Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. "Global warming is not just warming everywhere. ... It creates these complexities."
Gene Simmons Unleashes 4Chan On Himself

Gene Simmons Unleashes 4Chan On Himself

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

Gene Simmons of KISS fame is all about the money - most aging rockers don't have the pretense they had when they were young ("it's not about the money, man, it's about the MUSIC") and make no secret of the fact they want to get paid.

So when Gene Simmons stated he didn't think the RIAA was aggressive enough prosecuting grandmothers if their grandkids downloaded a Justin Bieber song ("Make sure your brand is protected. Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars.") and Anonymous at 4Chan (all million of them) tried to rattle his chain, he wasn't impressed.
Water And Silver? The Moon Just Got A Lot More Interesting

Water And Silver? The Moon Just Got A Lot More Interesting

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

When a NASA rocket slammed into the Moon last fall, scientists knew they would get information about the composition of the lunar soil at the poles that has never been sampled.

The findings from that NASA mission, called LCROSS for Lunar CRater Observing and Sensing Satellite, are out, and they are interesting to say the least.

The emptied upper stage of a rocket crashed into the Cabeus crater near the Moon's south pole last October. A second spacecraft followed to analyze the ejected debris for signs of water and other constituents of the super-chilled lunar landscape.
Google's Dutch Sandwich Saves Them $60 Billion In Taxes

Google's Dutch Sandwich Saves Them $60 Billion In Taxes

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

It's good to be a big company.   Middle America is about to get clobbered with higher taxes to pay for a health care reform that won't reform anything but Google's clever income shifting helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.
Racing Squid

Racing Squid

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

So, one time for my middle school gym class I was required to write an essay about a sport. Any sport. Unfortunately, I hated all sports. Fortunately, I was blessed with a creative spirit, so I invented a new sport to write about. This is the opening paragraph of my essay:
Squid racing is exhausting, often frightening, disorienting, and dangerous to participate in. It is also exhilerating, fascinating, and it cultivates a deep friendship between man and mollusk. This informational paper will cover the care and training of squid, race course descriptions, and advice to squid racers.
Again fortunately, my gym teacher had a sense of humor, and was sufficently amused by my fictional "sport" to grant me full credit on the assignment.
Optimizing Your Marathon - Using Math

Optimizing Your Marathon - Using Math

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

A numerical model can't help you finish a marathon, that will take a lot of running, but math can at least help you be the most efficient your body can be.

The best part about the night before a marathon is 'carb'ing up' the night before with a healthy pasta dinner but marathoners in training long before that make many mistakes with their diet, assuming "I'm in training" means they can eat twice as much of anything.
Number of sisters affects male sexuality

Number of sisters affects male sexuality

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

Unburdened by social engineering, some females prefer males who act like males so growing up with lots of sisters makes a male less sexy - for rats, anyway.

A new study published in Psychological Science, says that the sex ratio of a male rat's family when he's growing up influences both his own sexual behavior and how female rats respond to him.
When males who were raised with a lot of sisters were presented with receptive female rats, they spent less time mounting them than did male rats that were raised in male-biased litters or in balanced families.
Males, If You Want To Be Sexier To Females, Act Less Like Your Sister

Males, If You Want To Be Sexier To Females, Act Less Like Your Sister

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

A new study in rats says growing up with lots of sisters makes a male less sexy to females, because the sex ratio of a male rat's family while young influences his sexual behavior and therefore how female rats respond to him later.

Early life obviously affects later behavior but how early and how much of an impact and how can it be quantified in a less 'soft' fashion.    There are correlation studies that even conclude the position of a fetus in the uterus matters and that a female fetus that spends the pregnancy sandwiched between two brothers grows up to be more masculine because she's been exposed to their hormones.    
A Nanoscale Clue To Why Car Batteries Grow Old

A Nanoscale Clue To Why Car Batteries Grow Old

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

Lithium-ion batteries are commonly regarded as promising for the cars of the future (at least until hydrogen fuel cells are ready for prime time) but environmentalists interested in electric or hybrid vehicles are concerned about the acid rain caused by battery manufacturing and high replacement cost for the batteries, which will last about the same as a standard car battery but are a terrific expense.
Squid Symbionts a

Squid Symbionts a "Spritely Bunch"

Oct 21 2010 | comment(s)

Jessica Hilo writes in Miller-McCune, during an extensive analogy between bacteria and Mafia:
Off land, the Vibrio family is a spritely bunch. They are one of few bacteria that can communicate through quorum sensing — a family summit, if you will. Through quorum sensing, the Vibrios enhance symbiotic relationships they have with bioluminescent marine animals — feeding off decayed organic matter on the animal while assisting in reproduction, metabolism and camouflage.
Probably the most famous of these symbioses, of course, is that between Vibrio fischeri and the Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes.
So I get press releases ...

So I get press releases ...

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

I get quite a lot of press releases, as you can imagine.  Dozens or hundreds depending on the day.
A solution for vulture conservation

A solution for vulture conservation

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

The remaining vulture population in the North West Rajasthan range suffers an increased vulnerability due to:

•Isolated subpopulations
•Very large foraging areas (local and non-local threats)
•Very low effective population sizes
•Presumably very few genetic interactions
•Low natural reproductive rate
•Slow generation cycle
•Low potential for natural re-colonization
•Intensive philopatric behaviour
A Good Year For The 'A' Word: Fido Report, 2010

A Good Year For The 'A' Word: Fido Report, 2010

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

Anthropomorphizing, the process, as Twain might say, of “underestimating the animal by assigning to him human traits,” has had a good year. The reasons range from the continuing dominance of the Obama dog, Bo, on Fox News (Bo: “Socialist or simple anarcho syndiclist?”), to the rise of kitty cat “jammers” for tabby sleepover night. Not kidding. On the sleepover thing.
Chinese economic sabotage? Rare earth exports cut

Chinese economic sabotage? Rare earth exports cut

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

Like 'green' technology?  Currently 97% of the world's 17 rare earths originate from China and they are necessary for catalytic converters that reduce emissions in cars, for computer monitors,  pharmaceuticals and many other things that require these specialty metals.
Google Maps locates The Bat Cave

Google Maps locates The Bat Cave

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

Is nothing secret any more?    Not with Google Maps prowling the planet.

The top secret location of Batman's Batcave has been revealed and it's not under Wayne Manor - it's at an Air Force base in Okinawa.

Batman symbol Air Force’s 44th Fighter Squadron, the Vampire Bats

Why is it there?  The 44th Fighter Squadron is known as "the Vampire Bats", according to an Air Force spokesman.   Suuuuuuure, that's the truth.
Whose head is in that jar?

Whose head is in that jar?

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

Unlike the American Revolution, the French one turned out to be a bloody mess and led to Napoleon sacking all of Europe.   Because the French hated the British, they then instituted a French clock with 100,000 seconds per day (ten hours of a hundred minutes of a hundred seconds), a French calendar (three décades of 10 days per month - which meant each day of rest was after 9 working days, you can imagine how the French workers loved that) and even a new measurement system, the meter, which like most things French they calculated incorrectly but still caught on, even in Britain.
UDFy-38135539 Is Most Distant Galaxy Ever Measured

UDFy-38135539 Is Most Distant Galaxy Ever Measured

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

Astronomers report they have measured the distance to the most remote galaxy and have found that they are seeing it when the Universe was only about 600 million years old (a redshift of 8.6), making those the first confirmed observations of a galaxy whose light is clearing the opaque hydrogen fog that filled the cosmos at this early time. 
Apocalypse 1958: The Tide Went Out

Apocalypse 1958: The Tide Went Out

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

A Nuclear Eco-Catastrophe
Aging

Aging "In Utero"

Oct 20 2010 | comment(s)

One of the most recognized markers of cellular aging is the progressive accumulation of damage in the DNA, a molecule that cannot tolerate the alteration of the genetic information coded in its bases.