Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 438

Laconic Canadian narration: The case of vodka text

This York University video demonstrates a classic Canadian style of narration, carefully restraining all indicators of excitement or interest:

The video is titled “York Researchers send a text message using vodka,” It pertains to research reported in a newly published study:

“Tabletop Molecular Communication: Text Messages through Chemical Signals,” Nariman Farsad, Weisi Guo, Andrew W. Eckford, PLoS ONE 8(12): e82935. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.008293, epub December 18, 2013.

If you read the study, you may notice that the authors exclude any mention of vodka.

They also omit any indication of excitement, with the exception of the phrase “the transmission rates can be significantly improved by using better fans”.

BONUS (quasi-related): “Canada’s Science Communication Problem (and Two Things That Could Change It)” (HT @ShipLives)

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Surface tension, obsessive-compulsively

Ian Hopkinson talks about the need to attend obsessively, compulsively to detail when measuring surface tension:

Langmuir trough experiments are ideal for obsessive-compulsives: before you start your actual experiment you have to get the surface of the liquid you’re using absolutely clean. To do this you clean your trough, add in the ultrapure water, compress the surface, hoover (with a glass pipette connected to a vacuum pump) contaminants off the surface if there was an upturn in the surface tension, then go back to compressing the surface, hoovering the surface etc. Some times it just doesn’t work and you spend a morning trying to get your trough clean. Doing this for an oil/water interface is difficult, much more difficult actually I never succeeded. The core of the problem is that you don’t need much material to make a surface dirty, imagine painting a ball – the amount of paint required to cover the surface is much smaller than the volume of the ball.

(Thanks to investigator Alice Bell for bringing this to our attention.)

Some prefer to call the device a Langmuir-Blodgett Trough (some prefer not too, fearing that a sloppy pronunciation would make it sound like the name of a spy in a cheap intrigue novel: “Langmuir Blodgetroff”). This low-key video shows one person’s experiment using a Langmuir or Langmuir-Blodgett trough. Note the slight but dramatic pause before the narrator speaks the phrase “pure water”—that moment occurs near the 1:05 point of the video:

Ig Nobel Prize winner Harold Camping achieves his doom

Ig Nobel Prize winner Harold Camping is dead. Camping shared the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize for mathematics. That prize was awarded to

Dorothy Martin of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1954), Pat Robertson of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1982), Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the USA (who predicted the world would end in 1990), Lee Jang Rim of KOREA (who predicted the world would end in 1992), Credonia Mwerinde of UGANDA (who predicted the world would end in 1999), and Harold Camping of the USA (who predicted the world would end on September 6, 1994 and later predicted that the world will end on October 21, 2011), for teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations.

Today USA Today and the Associated Press report:

Doomsday minister Harold Camping dead at 92 

OAKLAND, California (AP) — Harold Camping, the U.S. preacher who used his evangelical radio ministry and thousands of billboards to broadcast the end of the world and then gave up public prophecy when his date-specific doomsdays did not come to pass, has died at age 92.

Camping, a retired civil engineer who built a worldwide following for the nonprofit Oakland, California-based ministry he founded in 1958, died at his home Sunday, said Family Radio Network marketing manager Nina Romero….  Camping’s most widely spread prediction was that the Rapture would happen on May 21, 2011. His independent Christian media empire spent millions of dollars — some of it from donations made by followers who quit their jobs and sold all their possessions— to spread the word on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RVs plastered with the Judgment Day message. When the Judgment Day he foresaw did not materialize, the preacher revised his prophecy, saying he had been off by five months…

STATUS REPORT (SUMMARY): Mr. Camping is not still not dead. At least one of his co-winners, Pat Robertson, is still not dead.

HISTORICAL BONUS: How Harold does his math

HISTORICAL BONUS: Harold Camping, Ig Nobel Prize-winning mathematician, explains his mistake

BONUS: Two interviews with Mr. Camping in 2011, shortly after the world did not end again:

 

Dwyer’s 1976 patent for shotgun-shell garden seeding

A “new” Swedish invention (and/or perhaps publicity-seeking device) seems just a repeat of an American invention patented in 1976.  See below for details of the original patent. (Thanks to investigator Jesse Eppers for bringing this to our attention.) The Swedish project, called Flowershell, has promotional videos. Here’s one of those:

Huffington Post discusses it: “‘Flower Shell’ Makes It Possible To Literally Shoot Seeds Into Your Garden With A Gun“. Business Insider discusses it: “Crazy Invention Lets Gardeners Plant Seeds With A Shotgun“. Gizmodo discusses it: “Plant Your Next Garden With A Boom, Using Repurposed Shotgun Shells“.

That old patent is:

“Shotshell with seed capsule,” US patent 3996865, granted to Vernon Thomas Dwyer of Des Peres, Missouri, on December 14, 1976. The patent cites an earlier publication: “Katzenjammer Kids” Comic Section Washington Post, Apr. 22, 1962. The patent describes Dwyer’s invention:

“A cartridge for both hunting and seed distributing purposes comprising a cylindrical casing having a primer, a propellant charge ignitable upon firing of said primer, spaced-apart wads above said propellant charge defining a load-receiving volume therebetween, a load of plant seeds received within a capsule disposed within said volume; a multi-missile shot charge provided above said volume and means for enclosing the normally forward end of said cartridge.”

“DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT: Referring now by reference characters to the drawing which illustrates the preferred embodiment of the present invention, A designates a shotgun shell or cartridge having the usual tubular body 1 fabricated of paper, plastic, metal or the like and having a suitably encased base, as at 2. Mounted within the base is a conventional primer 3 received within a base wad 4 which may, if desired, incorporate a base wad overlay 5; it being recognized that the latter is not critical to the present invention.  Provided above primer 3 is a propellant charge 6 and in immediate overlying relationship to said latter is an obturating wad 7 which is shown as incorporating a peripheral skirt 8. Provided above obturating wad 7 may be one or more filler or separator wads 9, fabricated of any suitable material, such as felt, pulp, or the like. Disposed upon filler wad 9 is a predetermined quantity or load of seed 10 encased within a thin-walled container or capsule 11 fabricated of a water soluble or moisture-rupturable material, such as gelatin, of the type which has found wide usage for medicinal capsules. Superimposed upon seed load 10 is a top filler wad 12, as of like character as wad 9, and with said wad 12 cooperating with the upper portion of body 1 to define a chamber 13 for a shot charge 14, as of multi-missile character, and being the usual type of shot for customary shotgun usage. A sealing or card wad 15 defines the upper limit of chamber 13 and with the upper end of shell A being closed in any well known manner, as by infolding of body 1, crimping, etc.”

Certain questions about eye examinations in England

Investigator Adrian Smith alerts us to this pair of studies which, he says, “leaves some scope for further studies, not in England, however”:

“Why don’t older adults in England go to have their eyes examined?“ Darren Shickle and Marcus Griffin, Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 2014 Jan;34(1):38-45.

“Why don’t younger adults in England go to have their eyes examined?“ Darren Shickle, Marcus Griffin, Rebecca Evans, Benjamas Brown, Almira Haseeb, Sharon Knight, Emily Dorrington, Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 2014 Jan;34(1):30-7.

BONUS QUESTION: Of the group, why did only Darren Shickle and Marcus Griffin write a study older adults in England?

 

Gumboot Dancing studies (in French)

Some may find the Gumboot Dancing traditions of South Africa to be paradoxical. Take for example Professor Bernard Cros of Le département d’études anglophones de l’UFR de langues et cultures étrangères de l’Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (Paris X) who writes, in Cultures of the Commonwealth, No. 13, Winter 2006/2007 [in French] Etrange destin a l’etranger: la reconnaissance internationale de l’Afrique du Sud. Le cas paradoxal du gumboot dancing [Strange destiny abroad: international recognition of South Africa. The paradoxical case of gumboot dancing]

“… the artform has become widely used abroad to illustrate the effect of artistic creation in South Africa. It is therefore legitimate to wonder about the reasons for its sudden appearance as a representative example of the national culture, i.e. its South Africanness.“

Note: the video above, entitled ‘Gumboot dans l’eau sur la plage de Tadoussac’ is from the Burask group of Montréal, Québec, who also write on the subject [in French] À propos de l’origine du gumboot…

 

Murray and John (and the Ig Nobel Prizes, sort of)

The Ig Nobel Prizes play a tiny, glancing role in a mutual-lack-of-admiration society that has two members:  science writer John Horgan and physicist Murray Gell-Man.

Books, books, books: When too many to read?

XKCD tries to answer the question  ”At what point in human history were there too many (English) books to be able to read them all in one lifetime?”

Improbably cheap, wondrous gifts for science types

Our self-serving recommendation for a cheap, wondrous gift for any curious person: The e-book editions of the Annals of Improbable Research.

Here’s the full list of issues. You can get them on Amazon.com, Kobo, or Barnes & Noble. (Amazon and B&N make it easy to send an issue as a gift.)

Download a free issue:

 

PS. Paper, paper, paper! If you prefer paper,  you can instead send a gift subscription to the paper version of the magazine, which has the same content as the e-books!

The spectra in the ring in the voice of the child solo singers

Some scientific papers seem meant—because of their topic—to be sung aloud, if only the wording were adjusted to make them easier to sing. Here’s one such study:

“‘Ring’ in the Solo Child Singing Voice,” David M. Howard, Jenevora Williams [pictured here], Christian T. Herbst, Journal of Voice, epub November 11, 2013. The authors, at the University of York, report:

METHODS: A group of child solo singers, acknowledged as outstanding by a singing teacher who specializes in teaching professional child singers, were recorded in a major UK concert hall performing Come unto him, all ye that labour, from the aria He shall feed his flock from The Messiah by GF Handel. Their singing was accompanied by a recording of a piano played through in-ear headphones. Sound pressure recordings were made from well within the critical distance in the hall. The singers were observed to produce notes with and without ring, and these recordings were analyzed in the frequency domain to investigate their spectra.

RESULTS: The results indicate that there is evidence to suggest that ring in child solo singers is carried in two areas of the output spectrum: first in the singer’s formant cluster region, centered around 4kHz, which is more than 1000Hz higher than what is observed in adults; and second in the region around 7.5–11kHz where a significant strengthening of harmonic presence is observed.