Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 511

Apparently intelligent behavior from the head of a toothbrush

Ig Nobel Physics Prize winner Mahadevan and his colleagues have demonstrated how to produce seemingly intelligent behavior with the head of a toothbrush. The Physics arXiv blog summarizes the study, in a few words:

Toothbrushes, BristleBots, and the Nature of Intelligence: Fix a vibrating motor to the head of a toothbrush and you have an automaton that can demonstrate surprisingly complex behaviour, say Harvard physicists.

Recruiting video of the week: Wonkwang

This week’s featured Recruiting Video for Wonks comes from Wonkwang University:

The university’s name may sound a bit unusual to English speakers. Be not put off. Gain basic knowledge by reading Wonkwang Today.

Mishmash Mishmash: “I Am”

Mishmash: the word is defined as “A collection or mixture of unrelated things; a hodgepodge“. Mishmash is also a name.  This is the next, and perhaps last, in a series of  little reports — a mishmash — of items about Mishmashes.

Scott Mishmash is author of the book I Am That I Am: An In-Depth Study of the Believer’s Spirit-Led Walk. Here’s a piece of the book’s front cover:

Hand Sanitizers, Breathalyzers, and Indications of Intoxication

Clean hands, skulduggery and/or incompetence can, if combined, lead to a muddle about drunkenness, suggests this study:

“Common Hand Sanitizer May Distort Readings of Breathalyzer Tests in the Absence of Acute Intoxication,” Syed S. Ali, Michael P. Wilson, Edward M. Castillo, Peter Witucki, Todd T. Simmons, Gary M. Vilke [pictured here], Academic Emergency Medicine, vol. 20, no. 2,  February 2013, pp. 212-215. The authors, at the University of California San Diego and other institutions in San Diego, report:

“To the authors’ knowledge, no previous study has examined whether application of ethanol-based hand sanitizers by the person operating a common breathalyzer machine will affect the accuracy of the readings. This was a prospective study investigating whether the use of hand sanitizer applied according to manufacturer’s recommendations (Group I), applied improperly at standard doses (Group II), or applied improperly at high doses (Group III) had an effect on breathalyzer readings of individuals who had not ingested alcohol….

“Conclusions: The use of common alcohol-based hand sanitizer may cause false-positive readings with a standard hospital breathalyzer when the operator uses the hand sanitizer correctly. The breathalyzer readings are further elevated if more sanitizer is used or if it is not allowed to dry appropriately.”

(HT The Poison Review and to Deborah Blum, the Queen of Poison Penmanship.)

O: Supplementary Fanning by Clownfish

This week’s Misinterpretable Headline of the Week is:

CLOWNFISH SUPPLEMENT ANEMONE OXYGEN BY FANNING

The headline and its article appear in the March 15, 2013 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Four-headed worms, six-legged frogs, and other new fauna

“We have four-headed worms, six-legged frogs, and many other unusual creatures here as part of our work on bioelectricity and organ regeneration.”

Biologist Michael Levin said that. Charles Choi explains, in an article in LiveScience under the headline “Mutant tadpoles sprout eyeballs on their tails“.

BONUS: “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain”

BONUS: “Two legs, four legs, six legs, more!”

BONUS: Heterosexual necrophilia in the frog

Beware the frumious numbat and its artifically colored deposits

An experiment with numbats:

“Eliminative Behavior of Captive Numbats, Myrmecobius fasciatus (Mammalia; Marsupialia): Pattern and Identification of Fecal Deposits,” Lindsay A. Hogan, Allan T. Lisle, Stephen D. Johnston, Zoo Biology, epub February 5, 2013. The authors, at the University of Queensland, and at the Perth Zoo, report:

“This study examined the spatial defecation patterns of numbats within captivity and tested the efficacy of a food colorant as a fecal marker in this species. Rather than randomly distributing scats throughout their environment, the numbats aggregated their feces at specific sites forming latrines. It is unclear whether the strong inclination for latrine formation was due to this species’ inherent behavior or is a direct result of captivity. Males were found to have a higher daily defecation rate, different defecation time, larger number of latrines, and greater number of scats per quadrant, as compared to females. In this study, the majority of scats were deposited along enclosure boundaries and for both sexes there was a higher probability of latrines being placed along enclosure fencing shared with a female neighbor. The high concentration of latrines along boundaries suggests that they may play a role in territorial defense. The results also indicated that captive numbats tend to choose defecation points away from food and refuge sites. Transit and total retention time of the marker through the GIT was ≤3 hr and between 24 and 27 hr, respectively. A marker dose of 3 gtts feed^(−1) × 2 feeds day^(−1) was required to reach a steady and detectable state of marker output, which enabled accurate identification of individual samples during the breeding season. Reliable labeling was obtained using blue and red colored food dye, and there was no evidence that incorporation of the marker into the diet had any negative effects on food intake.”

(Thanks to investigators Mike Marshall and John Hoyland for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: Video of a numbat exhibiting less colorful behavior:

 

The man who separates cookies

Artist David Neevel, labeling himself as a “physicist”, though he seems to mean “engineer”, presents this video of himself with a machine that separates the components of an Oreo cookie:

Neevel is also noted for his use, on another project, of paper airplanes:

(Thanks to investigator Sally Ramos for bringing this to our attention.)

 

Scientists speak up: “On the immortality of television sets”

By weird tradition, scientists use dull, obscure language when they criticize other scientists. Six scientists chose to stray outside that tradition. In a new paper, they criticize the people who did “The ENCODE Project: ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements”. They pull few, if any, punches. Thanks to Rolf (“pull no punches”) Zwaan for bringing this to our attention:

“On the immortality of television sets: “function” in the human genome according to the evolution-free gospel of ENCODE,” Dan Graur, Yichen Zheng, Nicholas Price, Ricardo B. R. Azevedo, Rebecca A. Zufall and Eran Elhaik, Genome, Biology and Evolution, epub February 20, 2013.  The authors, at the University of Houston and at Johns Hopkins University, write:

“A recent slew of ENCODE Consortium publications, specifically the article signed by all Consortium members, put forward the idea that more than 80% of the human genome is functional. This claim flies in the face of current estimates according to which the fraction of the genome that is evolutionarily conserved through purifying selection is under 10%. Thus, according to the ENCODE Consortium, a biological function can be maintained indefinitely without selection, which implies that at least 80 − 10 = 70% of the genome is perfectly invulnerable to deleterious mutations, either because no mutation can ever occur in these “functional” regions, or because no mutation in these regions can ever be deleterious. This absurd conclusion was reached through various means…

“Here, we detail the many logical and methodological transgressions involved in assigning functionality to almost every nucleotide in the human genome. The ENCODE results were predicted by one of its authors to necessitate the rewriting of textbooks. We agree, many textbooks dealing with marketing, mass-media hype, and public relations may well have to be rewritten….

“All functional entities in the universe can be rendered nonfunctional by the ravages of time, entropy, mutation, and what have you. Unless a genomic functionality is actively protected by selection, it will accumulate deleterious mutations and will cease to be functional. The absurd alternative, which unfortunately was adopted by ENCODE, is to assume that no deleterious mutations can ever occur in the regions they have deemed to be functional. Such an assumption is akin to claiming that a television set left on and unattended will still be in working condition after a million years because no natural events, such as rust, erosion, static electricity, and earthquakes can affect it.”

Pedestrian-mounted brake lights: March 8 in Stuttgart

“There are many accidents such as bumping between walkers in crowded places. One of reasons for them is that it is difficult for each person to predict the behaviors of other people. On the other hand, cars implicitly communicate with other cars by presenting their contexts with equipments such as brake lights and turn signals. In this paper, we propose a system for visualizing the user context by using information presentation methods based on those found in cars, such as wearing LEDs as brake lights, which can be seen by surrounding people. The evaluation results when using our prototype system confirmed that our method visually and intuitively presented the user context. In addition, we evaluated the visibility effects of changing the mounting position of the wearable devices.“

Authors Hiroaki Sasaki, Tsutomu Terada and Masahiko Tsukamoto are presenting the full details of their research on Friday, March 8, Stuttgart, Germany, at – Augmented Human ’13, (Session 7: Augmenting Human-Human Interaction)