Aggressive Advertising

So for most college students across the country, bags are being packed, posters are coming off the walls, and summer is taking its true form. But for the few, the proud, the quarter-system school students - including yours truly - it's still midterm season. Yes, as I write this I have Physics and Genetics midterms both tomorrow, with a Biochemistry exam not far behind on Wednesday. So faced with the immediate challenge of learning bacterial genetics, I resort to what has by now become a tradition for me before big tests: blog.

During most of the school year, my blogging gene (yes, I'm really going to make the genetics metaphor) lies cold - tightly bound and unexpressed. But it seems that whenever the pressure of looming examinations builds past a critical point, every cell in my body yearns to blog - the blogging gene comes alive.

So then, what do I blog about? Science? Politics? Genetics? No. I do what I did best back in my golden years of blogging: write about slightly amusing drivel. Like internet ads.

I was browsing the internet a while back and this one caught my eye, so I took a screenshot:




"How could that catch your eye above all the other shameless internet ads for watches, large and free sums of money, and superhuman sexual stamina," you might ask. Well, you can call me old-fashioned, but when it comes to the issue of forecasting my own death, the game changes. Sure, all those other ads promise implausible things, but knowing when I'm going to die, this I had to see! I mean, who couldn't trust that little skeleton hand coming up from the ground?

So I clicked on the ad. At once my computer began to make funny noises. They were muffled a little, but I could tell they were the sounds of a computer coughing, wheezing, sneezing, plagued by an onslaught of viruses and screaming for help. I forged on - I'd just give my laptop some Airborne later. I didn't care if I destroyed my computer. It was only an object. But understanding one's own death had an intangible importance. One that couldn't be quantified with money or other materials.

So with my computer wheezing its last breaths, an image came on the screen. It was hazy but if I squinted I could make out what it said. It was my destiny. It was my fate. It was the day of my death.

It turns out I'm going to die on May 2, 2003. I'm pretty sure the thing was broken. After that my computer crashed and I lost everything. My bank account has run dry for some reason and my credit card bill from last month was unreasonably large. I'm not too worried though. Sure I may have ruined my life over an ad, but I mean, can you really blame me?

President, Ph.D.

So I think as a person clearly interested in science (see: most of my recent posts), I've realized that I fit into a voting demographic that occasionally feels pretty lonely. I'm speaking of the demographic who would like to see in their elected officials a sliver of interest or, at the least, a slight deference to science.

I don't simply mean this in the vein that motivates politicians to say, "we have to teach and foster more young scientists in our schools so they can grow up and develop new technologies like microwave oven and the internet and energy that comes from all that green-bio-solar-wind-geothermal-ish stuff!" Of course, science's fertility for new technology is not a problem, but what I'm talking about is just a little more. I want a politician who understands what science's way of thinking is, and why that way of thinking could do us some good.

I saw this 60-Second Science podcast from Scientific American and thought it was nice to see that I'm not the only one.

I post this in keeping with Forgedaboudit's near-tradition of political objectivity. In other words, I'm not writing this to support a particular candidate.

Just When You Thought It Was Over

I'm still around. I've been pretty preoccupied, and I'll be the first to admit that Fgdbdt (as I like to call my blog) hasn't been my top priority. But absence only makes the heart grow founder. That's true at least for me. I haven't got anything blog about right now, but just you wait. You'll see!

Okay, but I'm reeeeally tired right now. You know how it is? Gotta catch some REM.

Peace

Animal Brains (continued)

As I do so often when posting to Forgedaboudit, I'm starting this entry presuming to know what you're thinking: "WHAT? Another post about $t00P1d science stuff?!?!?! Boring!" Well, too that's just too bad. Like a father speaking to his disgruntled children in the back seat on an insufferable family roadtrip, I say, "you're just going to have to make the best of it. Okay?.... Alright. Now let's have fun."

With that out of the way.... MOTHS! But more specifically... MOTH BRAINS! Only hours ago I posted about how scientists have found that the brain parts activated during speech for birds are closely associated with the parts responsible for motor functions. But now there's more crazy animal neuroscience:

Heard on NPR.org, scientists recently found that moths can actually remember things they learned when they were still larvae (i.e. caterpillars)! That's surprising because when they go into their metamorphosis in cocoons, they're whole bodies, brains included, are largely broken down and then reassembled.

Song Birds and Humans

Okay. Bedtime fast approaches, but I just couldn't go another day without checking in on my darling Forgedaboudit. And what little gift did I bring to say hello with? Science News! Kewl!

Well, it's from Scientific American again, but they've been putting out some pretty good stuff on the ole' RSS lately, so I can't shoot 'em down. And in particular, my undeniable interest in neuroscience is tempted with this one.

Question is: how did humans develop the ability to speak? I'll give you 10 seconds. 10... 9.... okay, whatever, there's no chance you can 100% accurately answer that. Neither can scientists today, but recently they got a lot closer.

Looking at birds who are able to learn new songs (meaning songs that they are not inherently able to sing if never exposed to another tune in their life) have a special part of their brain that becomes active. And what's it right next to? The part of the brain that controls movement of things like wings and limbs. So the suggestion: language (or more specifically, learning to produce the sounds of language with your vocal machinery) is like any other sport! It involves motor control. Kewl!

Okay, off to beddy bye. G'night.

Supply and Demand

According to this New York Times article, it looks like in the future I'll have a way to tell overly-dramatic stories to people 5 or so years less my age. What do I mean? Well, take a seat Jimmy (that's the hypothetical name I'm giving to the youngster I'll be lecturing as I sit in a rocking chair decades from now. I mean, of course the rocking chair will have a built in mp3 player in it, as all products in the future will. But it'll still be a rocking chair, and that will provide me with an important air of wisdom).

What I mean by this is that new demographics research seems to suggest that the number of high school graduates, or at least those expected to go to college, is predicted to decline in the coming years. Affluent high school graduates will be in smaller numbers, and so, on the surface, college admissions should become less competitive. Right now, it seems they're at the most competitive they've ever been (or so all my conversations with people still in high school inform me). Lower-income and working class high schoolers are still projected to increase, and so that's presumably why colleges, starting with the high-end Ivy Leaguers, are increasing the bounty of their financial aid. Still, whether that will work to keep college admissions at their current levels is unsure.

I guess my point is: I'M SOOOOO JEALOUS! When I applied to college, you had to have developed a small business, concocted the cure for at least two different diseases, or landed a 980 on your skateboard (1080 for the really top-tier schools) to get into anywhere suitable. I personally encompassed all three options and started the entrepreneurial 980's for Bacteriophage-Related Disease Cures (we're still hoping for our LLC status - fingers crossed). But that's neither here nor there, because in the next few years, it looks like kids will all be getting free-passes to college. I can't imagine how weird it'll be. What will we have to talk about with them? Not over-the-top SAT prep and college counseling emphasis, that's for sure.

Although, we'll be able to condescend that they don't know what hard work is. Yeah, a lot of "back in my day" sort of pontificating. I guess that'll make it all worth it. Growing old isn't so bad after all.

Even Then, It Was Still All Relative

So scientists seem to all agree on the Theory of Relativity today. It's one of the handful of utterly brilliant ideas Einstein churned out during his rapid-fire genius year(s) of 1904-1905 (at least for Special Relativity). If you ask me, which admittedly you probably won't, I wouldn't be able to explain relativity to you very well. I'm fantastically curious about it. I think it's one of those huge ideas in science that has pretty counterintuitive repercussions and that everyone praises as genius (see also Quantum Mechanics). And so it probably boils down to the childish "I Want One" urge in me - jealous to get my own understanding. For whatever reason, I'm curious and I've been reading the semi-recent Einstein biography Einstein by Walter Isaacson to learn more, but it's slow going. Good book. Tough concepts. Lots of trains, light beams, clocks, pirate ships, trains... there's lots of trains. I've managed to grasp that pattern at least.

Getting back on track, the century-old Theory of Relativity had, like all theories, a first time: a first experiment that leant real support to it. And that experiment took place in 1919, when two halves of one scientific team monitored a solar eclipse from different parts of the world. They watched the way light travelled when it got close to the sun. And what they saw lined up more with Einstein's theories than with Newton's. And the rest is... relativity history (I unfortunately don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the subsequent relativity-confirming experiments, so ... let's leave it at vagaries?).

Well historians in the 1980's started to question the objectivity of those 1919 scientists. Later in the 20th century, a group of historians put forth that the 1919 scientists discarded certain measurements simply because they didn't fit with the Einsteinian predictions. Indeed, one of the scientists had not used one of the measurements that matched well with Newtonian theory. It should be pointed out though, that following 1919 there have obviously been other experiments to support Relativity. So this controversy didn't affect the legitimacy of Relativity really. It got down to being a pure bout of historical drama -it's just like your daily Soaps!

But recently, Scientific American reports that another scientific historian has vindicated the 1919 scientist. Turns out, the scientist who decided to not keep the data point had made a legitimate argument in doing so: that it was simply a mechanical error in the telescope. He had made the right choice to not include the data. He upheld great scientific insight and integrity. Wow.... WHAT A NERD!

I'm relieved to find this age-old mystery solved. I think I speak for everyone when I say, I was starting to find it tiresome. Was .93 arc-seconds measurement error or inconvenient data? Will he? Won't he? Will they get back together? Whose baby is it?

Well now it's over. Phew. Rest easy Relativity enthusiasts.

I'm Having Seconds

More posting in one day? That's right baby. It's the digital age. Zeros and ones. I can do whatever I want. Maybe I'll just keep posting for the rest of February 21st? Maybe I will. Don't test me. Because I'll do it. (I probably won't. I've got that Physics midterm tomorrow).

Enough tough talk. Let's get to the reason I'm posting twice in one day. I'm committed to reading Chapter 3: Acoustics from my Physics book right now, so I haven't even had a chance to listen to either of the two stories from the new NPR show, The Bryant Park Project, that I'm linking you to, but I'm intrigued nevertheless.

#1: Check out this story on the Art of Pen-spinning, something the once-masterful blogger Chris Knight tried to school me in years back. But I was youthful and stubborn at the time. If only I'd listened. Then again, he did have a bunch of other stupid suggestions like cup-stacking. I guess you win some, you lose some.

#2: This story has moved up the most-emailed list on NPR's website, and I've only had a chance to read the textual description of it. I'm hoping the audio provides more depth on this unusual Christian enterprise.

Okay, that's all for now. Back to my study chamber.

I don't have a study chamber. I just have a coffee table.

Rats Off To You

Well, I'm back. After almost a month of non-posting, I'm coming up on my second round of midterms. And with exams and the academic responsibilities they carry drawing near, I reach for my trusty diversion: Forgedaboudit.

Anywho... rats. Gross, right? But by scientists' standards, they are a common and convenient target for injected human embryonic stem cells. So, I guess... it's a trade-off. Well, all the messing around with rats heads seems to be paying off. Or so says a new Scientific American article. Apparently, rats who had strokes (for all those rat-fans out there, I hate to inform you that these strokes weren't just coincidences, if you know what I mean? Wink... wink.... wink? .... I mean the scientists made the rats have strokes...) forcing loss of control in their left paws, actually regained control after injection of human embryonic stem cells. And here's the kicker. No tumors! So... good news for just rats right?

Nope. Humans potentially too. Now, maybe there will be a chance of using this in humans. So I guess we all learned that rats aren't just gross.