Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Top 8 Scientific Feuds

Science! It's full of controversy! Like this one, which happens to be important to me! But guess what. Scientists have found things to argue about since, like, forever.

For instance!

8. Telsa v. Edison

Basically, these two guys had a game where they shot electricity at each other. It got out of hand once and they became superhuman… with Edison as the hero and Tesla as the villain. This is all just to say, you could make a friggin’ sweet comic book out of Tesla and Edison.

7. Galileo v. Kepler

It’s not what you think. This was basically a “Kepler ate the last Christmas cookie, Galileo never got over it” kind of thing. Sad, really. Scientists can be so cruel.

6. Feynman v. Schrodinger

It all started when Feynman and Schrodinger were pounding some shots at a bar and this blonde pretty-young-thing sidled up to the pair and was all, “What’s up, Dick?” Feynman left the bar with the girl and the bartender commented to Schrodinger, “He’s totally going to bang her,” to which Schrodinger responded, “He is… and he isn’t.” Feynman was later heard yelling mid-coitus, “No uncertainty here, Erwin!”

5. Turing v. Erdos

These two brilliant mathematicians were locked in a lifelong battle to see who could be the most batshit brilliant/insane mind of his time. Erdos did pretty well for himself—regularly taking amphetamines, referring to children as “epsilons” and God as “the Supreme Facist”—but Turing wins the belt for killing himself with a cyanide-laced apple, death by reenactment of his favorite fairy tale, Snow White.

4. Mendeleev v. Mendel

Mendel and Mendeleev had no scientific quibble, but both were known to complain bitterly, “Why won’t he change his fucking name!? No one will ever remember me if that fucker won’t go by something else.”

3. Bohr v. Thompson

Though Thompson admitted that the Bohr model of the atom “totes made more sense,” he refused to concede that it was a “tastier” possibility than the Plum Pudding Model.

2. Cajal v. Golgi

The dispute between these two (EDIT: it used to say "Italian" here, but now it doesn't thanks to brilliant commenter Anna) neuroscientists arose when Ramon y Cajal used Camillo Golgi’s technique of silver chromate staining to disprove the accepted theory that the nervous system was a reticular meshwork, and instead, that it was made up of discrete cells, later called neurons. Rumor has it that after Cajal and Golgi co-accepted the 1906 Nobel Prize in Medecine, Golgi shoved it in Cajal’s mouth and punched him in the nuts like, five times. “Stain this, motherfucker!” he yelled, presumably in Italian.

1. Watson v. Crick

Renowned for their discovery of the structure of DNA, these two science-bros spent most of their non-science time competing for the affections of Rosalind Franklin, the biophysicist/hottie who, let’s face it, did most of their work. Their passionate collaborations—both in the lab and in the bedroom—were later adapted into the film, Y tu mama tambien

Friday, February 20, 2009

Top 9 Articles in the Journal Science in the Past Few Months

As part of my job, I have to read scholarly journals so I can stay up do date on, um, science things. One such journal is Science. Now, I usually only read the articles that are related to developments in neuroscience, but every once in a while, there's a gem that you can't ignore. The lesson is this: there are millions and millions of dollars being spent on figuring out how bugs do it and what noises they make while doing it.

9. Queen Ants Make Distinctive Sounds That Are Mimicked by a Butterfly Social Parasite

Francesca Barbero, Jeremy A Thomas, Simona Bonelli, Emilio Balletto, and Karsten Schönrogge, published 6 February 2009

Sounds made by queen ants denoting rank are copied by the larvae and pupae of a parasitic butterfly, facilitating their infiltration into ant colonies.

"We conclude that acoustical mimicry provides another route for infiltration for ~10,000 species of social parasites that cheat ant societies."

Finally, the scientists are speaking for the ants.

8. Broadband Ground-Plane Cloak
R. Liu, C. Ji, J. J. Mock, J. Y. Chin, T. J. Cui, and D. R. Smith, published 16 January 2009

An automated design process arranges thousands of metamaterial components to cloak an object on a metal surface.

"The possibility of cloaking an object from detection by electromagnetic waves has recently become a topic of considerable interest."

UM WHY WAS I NOT NOTIFIED ABOUT INVISIBILITY CLOAK RESEARCH!?!!? CHERYL, GET THE EFF IN HERE YOU ARE SO FRIGGIN' FIRED!!!

7. Strong Release of Methane on Mars in Northern Summer 2003
Michael J. Mumma, Geronimo L. Villanueva, Robert E. Novak, Tilak Hewagama, Boncho P. Bonev, Michael A. DiSanti, Avi M. Mandell, and Michael D. Smith, published 20 February 2009

Earth-based spectrometers have detected seasonal variations of methane emissions from certain locations on Mars in 2003.

"In northern midsummer, the principal plume contained ~19,000 metric tons of methane, and the estimated source strength (≥0.6 kilogram per second) was comparable to that of the massive hydrocarbon seep at Coal Oil Point in Santa Barbara, California."

MARS FARTED!!!

6. Avian Paternal Care Had Dinosaur Origin
David J. Varricchio, Jason R. Moore, Gregory M. Erickson, Mark A. Norell, Frankie D. Jackson, and John J. Borkowski, published 19 December 2008

The large egg clutches of troodontid and oviraptor dinosaurs and evidence that fossils of brooding dinosaurs were males shows that paternal care was ancestral to birds.

"To assess parental care in Cretaceous troodontid and oviraptorid dinosaurs, we examined clutch volume and the bone histology of brooding adults."

Heh, heh... broody dinosaurs boning.

5. Brown Clouds over South Asia: Biomass or Fossil Fuel Combustion?
Örjan Gustafsson, Martin Kruså, Zdenek Zencak, Rebecca J. Sheesley, Lennart Granat, Erik Engström, P. S. Praveen, P. S. P. Rao, Caroline Leck, and Henning Rodhe, published 23 January 2009

Biomass burning accounts for at least one-half of carbon-rich aerosols in the Asian atmospheric brown cloud that forms each winter.

Brown Clouds over South Asia: Biomass, Fossil Fuel Combustion... OR AWESOME PROG-ROCK CONCEPT ALBUM TITLE!?!?!?!

4. The Spreading of Disorder
Kees Keizer, Siegwart Lindenberg, and Linda Steg, published 12 December 2008

Upon observing signs of social disorder (such as littering or graffiti), individuals are more likely to disobey a variety of social rules, including prohibitions against theft.

"Imagine that the neighborhood you are living in is covered with graffiti, litter, and unreturned shopping carts. Would this reality cause you to litter more, trespass, or even steal?"

Wait, wait, wait... what's wrong with unreturned shopping carts? You can't play with them if you return them!

3. Selfish Genetic Elements Promote Polyandry in a Fly
T. A. R. Price, D. J. Hodgson, Z. Lewis, G. D. D. Hurst, and N. Wedell, published 21 November 2008

Genes that confer a deleterious sex ratio in Drosophila also decrease male fertility and promote repetitive mating in females, providing a possible explanation of polyandry.

"It is unknown why females mate with multiple males when mating is frequently costly and a single copulation often provides enough sperm to fertilize all a female's eggs."

Yah, tell me about it. HOLLER!

2. A Great-Appendage Arthropod with a Radial Mouth from the Lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate, Germany
Gabriele Kühl, Derek E. G. Briggs, and Jes Rust, published 6 February 2009

Fossil evidence for the great-appendage arthropods extends to more recent periods by about 100 million years.

"Schinderhannes bartelsi shows an unusual combination of anomalocaridid and euarthropod characters, including a highly specialized swimming appendage."

Yeah, those arthropods better have a radial mouth if their appendages are so great. (Prehistoric entomology and blowjob jokes do mix!)

1. Harmonic Convergence in the Love Songs of the Dengue Vector Mosquito
Lauren J. Cator, Ben J. Arthur, Laura C. Harrington, and Ronald R. Hoy, published 20 February 2009

Male and female mosquitoes change their wing beat frequencies to match each other as a prelude to mating.

"These findings revise widely accepted limits of acoustic behavior in mosquitoes."

Awwwwww, groundbreaking and adorable!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The 26 Comedic Situations

Do you know about this one thing? This fella in the 19th Century, Georges Polti, came up with a list of 36 Dramatic Situations... it was founded on research and science, even. Well, guess the fuck what?! They don't have a list of comedic situations! Georgio was slackin"! Geo-polts totally bounced out on half of the job. Like, half of life is comedy, brother... as a matter of fact, I am watching Pineapple Express right now. SO. I went ahead and did the ol' bastard's work for him...

Also, see The Wrestler.

Also, as a preface, you should know that Rob's favorite genre of comedy is large pyramids of cans being knocked over. I went a little overboard to please Rob...

26. Humor
A man knocks over a pyramid of cans

25. Gender humor
A woman knocks over a pyramid of cans

24. Reversal
A man dressed as a woman knocks over a pyramid of cans

23. Shakespeare
A woman dressed as a man in order to further her career (but with unforeseen complications involving her crush) knocks over a pyramid of cans

22. Political Humor
The president knocks over a pyramid of cans (note: the cans represent the economy!!!)

21. Sports Humor
The cans get knocked over, then they get back up and win State

20. Farce
A mostly-naked man running from one bedroom to another knocks over a pyramid of cans

19. Comic Juxtaposition
A man knocks over a pyramid of cans... on the moon!

18. Ethnic Humor
A man with an accent knocks over a pyramid of cans

17. Sexual Humor
A man knocks over a pyramid of dicks

16. Parody
A man dressed as the approximation of a popular, recent film character knocks over a pyramid of cans designed to look similar to a popular, recent pyramid of cans (note: the result will most likely be titled "Can Movie")

15. Situation Comedy
A father who works too damn hard every day to have to come home to this is unable to fulfill his wife sexually or keep his kids from knocking over the family's pyramid of cans

14. Prop Comedy
A woman opens a closet and a pyramid of cans falls out (note: why the fuck are there cans in your closet, woman?)

13. Religious Humor
Several spiritual leaders, each belonging to a different faith, knock over a pyramid of cans

12. Mockumentary
A man who has spent the last year of his pathetic, small-town life constructing a pyramid of cans is interviewed in the foreground, while the pyramid of cans collapses in the background

11. Greek Humor
The will of the gods causes a pyramid of cans to fall over--the pyramid of cans was a symbol of sexual frustration, and now all the men and women are allowed to make love again

10. Fish-out-of-Water
A New York City woman knocks over a cans in rural Montana, forcing her to restore the pyramid--and in the process, lend some style to the locals

9. Animals
A dog knocks over a pyramid of cans

8. Ridiculous Animals
A talking dog knocks over a pyramid of cans

7. Ridiculous Cartoon Animals
A talking cartoon dog knocks over a talking pyramid of cartoon cans (or cats)

6. Zom-Rom-Com
A horde of zombies knock over a pyramid of cans that two exes are hiding behind

5. War Humor
A war knocks over a pyramid of cans, to the delight of a platoon of fun-loving soldiers, who choose to indulge in pranks and frivolity to avoid the horrors of war

4. Dark Comedy
A man commits suicide by allowing a pyramid of cans to topple over onto him

3. Romantic Comedy
A pyramid of cans falls over, causing a man and woman to fall in love

2. Tragicomedy
A man building a large structure out of cans realizes that he is building his own prison. Upon this realization, he bellows, "I'VE BUILT MY OWN PRISON!!!" causing the cans to collapse and kill him

1. The Absurd
A man knocks over a can of pyramids

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The 6 Steps of Mitosis

I found this on the white board in my lab. It was under the heading "Steps of Mitosis". It is art, plain and simple. (I've taken the liberty of including some commentary.)

1. Duplification
This is the step at which cells duplify. That is to say, where there was once only one, now there are two or possibly many.

2. Splitatory events
After duplification, it is common for the newly duplified cells to attend some splitatory events. Splitation is the process of becoming okay with your recent duplification. It's like a retreat, kind of.

3. Random bondilations
While attending splitatory events, some cells get to know each other a little better, and if they are lucky, they sneak out after curfew and bondilate. It's totally random, but also totally hot. These bondilations are the source of genetic mutilation.

4. Methedidical
The purpose of this step is purebred bottled batshit insanity. (Either that, or it is a misspelling of "methodical", which makes total sense.)

5. Olfackatory
What.

6. Blast or cyst
At the end of mitosis, a cell has the choice of being a blast or a cyst. Most cool cells choose blast.