Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 23

For Aesthetes Who Enjoy Ant Eating-and-Carrying Sounds

An entity called LIttleTingle offers this ASMR-ish video called “Ants carrying Food and Eating Sounds Macro No talking Satisfying and Relaxing”:

Sad news: Frans de Waal is gone

Frans de Waal has died. Among his smaller accomplishments was winning an Ig Nobel Prize in 2012, with colleague Jennifer Pokorny, for discovering that chimpanzees can identify other chimpanzees individually from seeing photographs of their rear ends. [The photo you see here shows them giving their acceptance speech at the Ig Nobel ceremony at Harvard University.]

The Dutch newspaper NRC reports the sad news (and goes on, to describe some of de Waal’s imaginative, often-colorful research):

The man who brought humans and monkeys together

Frans de Waal died on Thursday evening US time at the age of 75 in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia (USA), as a result of metastatic stomach cancer, his family confirmed.

De Waal was the most famous Dutch primatologist for decades. With his calm speech, great knowledge and undeniable love for our fellow animals, he was also a well-known figure outside of science. Often shown on television, often quoted in debates.

De Waal rose to fame in the 1980s with his book Chimpanzee Politics (1982). This book was based on his observations of the power struggle in the chimpanzee colony of Burgers Zoo in Arnhem. The book offers a radical new view of ape leadership: it is not brute force and the direct application of power, but rather the mediation of conflicts and careful management of alliances that characterize the life of an ape leader. The monkey world suddenly became very human. So humane that conservative Republican Senator Newt Gingrich recommended the book in the 1990s as educational reading for young members of Congress.

This is a common thread in De Waal’s work: apes are much more like humans, and humans are much more like apes, than we think. As he said in a speech about his work in 2014: “I have moved the monkeys up a little and the people down a little.” …

Eating robots, Sliceable ketchup, Ketchup on glass, Financial smirks

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Who eats whom? — Will robots eat us? Or will we eat robots? Both technophiles and -phobes have hungered to learn which will happen first. The answer has now arrived, in a report from a team at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo and at Osaka University, Japan….Sliceable ketchup — Sliceable sauces of many kinds have yet to become popular. For the mo, technological hopes and resources are pouring onto ketchup. Ketchup eaters, as well as food technologists, can satisfy some of their hunger for knowledge by reading the study “Textural and rheological properties of sliceable ketchup“, published in the journal Gels. “There is a lack of knowledge on sliceable ketchup,” explain the authors…Ketchup on glass — Catching up on ketchup news that broke just as the covid-19 pandemic was seizing everyone’s attention, Feedback finds that in 2020, at the Seventh European Seminar on Precision Optics Manufacturing in Teisnach, Germany, manufacturers were told about the benefits of putting ketchup on glass. Max Schneckenburger and his colleagues at the Centre for Optical Technologies in Aalen, Germany, introduced their peers to what, for some, was a new concept: “High precision glass polishing with ketchup“….Financial smirks — You are correct if you suspect there are smirks inside the financial industry, deep behind the sombre, serious facades of buildings, business suits and coiffures. Many top finance analysts, in their daily work, investigate these smirks. What is a financial smirk? The Options Industry Council, which advises investors, explains, somewhat, that “When mapping implied volatility levels, the curve these points create is typically identified as either a ‘smile’ or a ‘smirk’ depending on the shape created by the level for out-of-the-money puts and calls“….

The special ANTS issue of the magazine

The special Ants issue of the magazine (volume 30, number 2) has just gone out to subscribers. It’s got copious details about ants and ants research and ant researchers. And more. Lotsa stuff that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.

The magazine is in PDF format. You can buy a copy, or buy a subscription.

Warning and advice (for humans) about magpie swooping

“Magpies swoop bald men more often, eight-year-old’s viral survey finds,” says an Australian Broadcasting Corporation report.

Some years ago, Australia’s Department for Environment and Water offered this advice: “Magpie swooping season is here! Find out why they swoop and how you can try and avoid them”. And this suggestion: “Carry an open umbrella above your head.”

(Thanks to David Bromage for bringing this to our attention.)

 

 

Gift mice, Politicians’ food and pee, Tarantula sucking, Tender youth, Cat dependence

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Time for love — Valentine’s Day celebrates coupling. Alan McWilliam tells Feedback about an offer he received, before the most recent Valentine’s Day, from a US-based biotechnology company. It couples charm with other qualities. Alan says: “I received the marketing email below. I’ve never been offered a ‘complimentary breeding pair of genetically modified mice’ for Valentine’s Day before. What says romance more than gazing into your mouse’s eyes, over a Bunsen burner flame, before implanting a tumour and humanely euthanising it a few weeks later?” …Political restraint — … The BMJ (formerly formally called The British Medical Journal) makes medical note of news reports that prime minister Rishi Sunak “fasts for 36 hours at the beginning of every week”. Sunak’s past and present medical data might intrigue and inspire physicians, psychologists and nutrition researchers. Over time, does the body in evidence inflate or deflate? How much of that inflation or deflation can be attributed to the leader’s first-person management of food? More complete data may already be available about the effects and effectiveness of self-imposed restraint (or at base, self-claimed restraint) by former prime minister David Cameron, who held office and his urine from 2010 to 2016….Down the tarantula hole — … Trilobite researchers still chatter about the study “Frontal auxiliary impressions in the Ordovician trilobite Dalmanitina Reed, 1905 from the Barrandian area, Czech Republic“, published a few years ago in the Bulletin of Geosciences. But only the most diligent of them noticed – deep in the references section, at the end of the paper – something unexpected: mention of a paper called “Coupling between the heart and sucking stomach during ingestion in a tarantula”….Tender youth — Dave Kirby has noticed another cookbook that, like The Anarchist Cookbook, maybe needs to come with a warning (Feedback had suggested something along the lines of: “If you don’t cook your anarchist to the proper temperature, there may be problems”)….Depending on cats — … A study from California called “A comparison of people’s attachments to romantic partners and pet cats,” published in the journal Anthrozoös, reports that some people “did not necessarily need reassurance from their cat or feel distress when their cat was unavailable to them the way they might about a romantic partner”.

Sibley’s Improbable How-to-Identify-Rare-Birds Advice

Birders, heed David Sibley‘s improbable advice about how to identify rare birds:

If you think that you, of all people, have found a rare bird, ask yourself the following questions:

Is this identification correct?Can you think of even one explanation that works as well or better to explain what you have seen?Do the marks you have seen really unquestionably lead to the identification as a rare species?Are you being ruthlessly honest with yourself, or could you be suffering from wishful thinking?

That advice appears in the book Sibley’s Birding Basics. It paraphrases, specifically, the Improbable Research Teachers’ Guide that appears in every issue of the Annals of Improbable Research:

Improbable Research Teachers’ Guide

Three out of five teachers agree: curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially in students. If you are one of the other two teachers, AIR and mini-AIR can be powerful tools. Choose your favorite hAIR-raising article and give copies to your students. The approach is simple. The scientist thinks that he (or she, or whatever), of all people, has discovered something about how the universe behaves. So:

Is this scientist right — and what does “right” mean, anyway?Can you think of even one different explanation that works as well or better?Did the test really, really, truly, unquestionably, completely test what the author thought she (or he) was testing?Is the scientist ruthlessly honest with himself (or herself) about how well his (etc.) idea explains everything, or could he (etc.) be suffering from wishful thinking?Some people might say this is foolish. Should you take their word for it?Other people might say this is absolutely correct and important. Should you take their word for it?

Kids are naturally good scientists. Help them stay that way.

Intentional cattiness, Yarnlike supercapacitors, Measuring fingers and addiction, The Denver sniff test

This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them:

Intentional cattiness — When cats are forced to endure a crush of mass attention from an adoring public, do they continue to behave in their famous, endearing, imperious “cat-like” ways? Simona Cannas and her colleagues at the University of Milan in Italy produced some data that may bring attention to the question. Their study, “Assessment of cats’ behavior during a cat show“, published in the Journal of Veterinary Behavior, focuses on 82 cats at a cat show. (The researchers, using professional lingo, say the event was “a feline exposition”.) …What a yarn — Very long, thin things vary a lot in what their mathematician’s-eye-catching length-to-thinness ratio makes it possible for them to do. A press release from North Carolina State University hails the creation of “yarn-shaped supercapacitors”, so called because the devices are thread-like and can behave as capacitors, controllably storing and disbursing electrical charge….Measuring addiction — The old saying “If you can measure it, it must be important” haunts the many research efforts to explain why it is important to measure two of the five fingers on a person’s hand. Specifically, the second and fourth fingers. The two-finger quest kinda, sorta resembles an addiction. Sometimes this quest looks at addiction itself as being, maybe, something you can better understand by measuring fingers….The Denver sniff test — When something – and its headline – smells funny, maybe it is worth looking into. People who happen across a sombre study by environmental scientists in the US might react first to the ambiguity of its title: “Evaluating the environmental justice dimensions of odor in Denver, Colorado“….

Ig Nobel Prize winners bring insight on whale communication

Two Ig Nobel Prize winners and some of their colleagues collaborated in a discovery about how some whales are able to communicate. A report from the University of Southern Denmark announces it:

Baleen whales evolved a unique larynx to communicate but cannot escape human noise

Baleen whales are the largest animals to have ever roamed our planet and as top predators play a vital role in marine ecosystems. To communicate across vast distances and find each other, baleen whales depend critically on the production of sounds that travels far in murky and dark oceans.

However, since whale songs were first discovered more than 50 years ago, it remained unknown how baleen whales produce their complex vocalizations – until now.

A new study in the prestigious journal Nature, reports that baleen whales evolved unique structures in their larynx that enable their low-frequency vocalizations, but also limit their communication range….

The new study

The study is: “Evolutionary Novelties Underlie Sound Production in Baleen Whales,” Coen P. H. Elemans, Weili Jiang, Mikkel H. Jensen, Helena Pichler, Bo R. Mussman, Jacob Nattestad, Magnus Wahlberg, Xudong Zheng, Qian Xue, and W. Tecumseh Fitch, Nature, epub 2024.

Two Ig Nobel Prizes

Co-author Magnus Wahlberg and a colleague were awarded the 2004 Ig Nobel Biology Prize for showing that herrings apparently communicate by farting. [That research, done independently by two different groups, is documented in two studies.  “Sounds Produced by Herring (Clupea harengus) Bubble Release,” Magnus Wahlberg and Håkan Westerberg, Aquatic Living Resources, vol. 16, 2003, pp. 271-5. “Pacific and Atlantic Herring Produce Burst Pulse Sounds,” Ben Wilson, Robert S. Batty and Lawrence M. Dill, Biology Letters, vol. 271, 2003, pp. S95-S97.]

Co-author W. Tecumseh Fitch and colleagues were awarded the 2020 Ig Nobel Acoustics Prize for for inducing a female Chinese alligator to bellow in an airtight chamber filled with helium-enriched air. [That research is documented in the study “A Chinese Alligator in Heliox: Formant Frequencies in a Crocodilian,” Stephan A. Reber, Takeshi Nishimura, Judith Janisch, Mark Robertson, and W. Tecumseh Fitch, Journal of Experimental Biology, vol. 218, 2015, pp. 2442-2447.]

Bonus Info on Earlier Discoveries About (1) Herring Farts and (2) Alligators Bellowing in Helium

In this video (below), Magnus Whalberg reveals the once top-secret aspect of his Ig Nobel Prize-winning work. the video is titled “How herring farts almost lead to a diplomatic crisis“:

In this video (below), the Reuters wire service shows and tells about the Ig Nobel Prize winning work of Tecumseh Fitch and colleagues. The report is called “This is what an alligator on helium sounds like“:

 

Discrete Mathematics with Ducks

Discrete Mathematics with Ducks is a textbook about discrete mathematics and ducks:

Discrete Mathematics with Ducks (second edition), by Sarah-Marie Belcastro, ISBN 9780367570705, 700 Pages, published June 30, 2020 by Chapman & Hall.

(Mostly) unrelated: “How a dead duck changed my life”: