Category Archives: Other science

aka stamp collecting

Random Nonphysics Link

Posted on by

Son-Of-A-Bitch Mouse Solves Maze Researchers Spent Months Building

The test subject, a common house mouse, briskly traversed the complicated wooden maze in under 30 seconds or, according to the study’s final report, roughly 1/8,789,258 as long as it took the lab to secure funding for the experiment.

[…]

“Had we obtained any usable data, perhaps that information would have led to the development of a cure for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. William Eng, who led the team responsible for creating the maze. “What is unclear at this time is why this particular mouse had to be such a dick and render useless all the work we had put into this controlled behavioral experiment.”

Infrared You Won't Forget

Posted on by

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Notice that the ears are cooler — an elephant uses its ears for thermoregulation. The same idea as fins on any heat sink: lots of surface area. That’s necessary because of the elephant’s shape (the spherical approximation is much more reasonable for an elephant than for a cow) meaning has a small surface-to-volume ratio, so it’s efficient at retaining heat.

With a wide surface area of outer ear tissue, hot blood in the arteries is cooled as it is filtered through the vast network of capillaries and veins. Thus, the body temperature is regulated with the cooled blood returning to the main body.

Metacognahowsawuzzah?

Posted on by

Metacognitive Miscalibration, or wicked problems and the desire to learn, and other reasons misinformed people think they are well-informed.

Why are the unintelligent or uninformed so arrogantly confident while the intelligent and well informed so often unsure and apprehensive? There is something very human to thinking you know more than you really do about a subject or issue.

Explained in terms of software development.

via Daring Fireball

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

Posted on by

NY Times book review

Johnson’s list is eclectic and his outlook romantic. “Science in the 21st century has become industrialized,” he states, with experiments “carried out by research teams that have grown to the size of corporations.” By contrast, Johnson (a longtime contributor to The New York Times) favors artisans of the laboratory, chronicling “those rare moments when, using the materials at hand, a curious soul figured out a way to pose a question to the universe and persisted until it replied.”

The “materials at hand” is one thing that continually amazes me. I read details of some century-old experiment and am reminded that their apparatus and supplies were hand-crafted, often in the same lab. You read about Rutherford doing alpha-scattering experiments in pure nitrogen. Did he order a tank of compressed nitrogen from the local welding-supplies shop, like I do? Of course not.

The nitrogen was obtained by the well-known method of adding ammonium chloride to sodium nitrite, and stored over water.

(My well-known method involves the internet and a credit card)

Random Nonphysics Post

Posted on by

You Say Organic Potato, I Say Poisonous Lump of Neurotoxins

I was thinking of weaponized potatoes, and was going to entitle this “Potato in the Hole!” but that quickly brought up a decidedly uncomfortable mental image.

But it’s not just potatoes that can kill you with their toxins. Apple seeds contain cyanogenic glycosides, which can release hydrogen cyanide gas when acted on by enzymes; chocolate containes theobromine (as does tea and cola), which can stimulate the heart to the point of cardiac arrest; and caffeine is a fatal neurotoxin that can also cause miscarriages in pregnant women.

I will continue to throw myself on rogue chocolate that threatens anyone, because I am selfless that way.