Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 542

Researching Drinking Songs of Drunken Songbirds

The Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans is — at least in part — about wine, warblers, and song. This poster is that part (or part of that part):

“Drinking songs: The efficacy of songbirds in alcohol research,” C. R. Olson [pictured below, near a glass presumably containing a beverage], A. E. Ryabinin, C. V. Mello, poster, Neuroscience 2012 meeting, October 2012. The authors, at Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon, explain:

“Here we introduce the zebra finch as a model organism to study the effects of ethanol consumption on bird song: an example of a complex learned behavior. To evaluate the rate at which finches metabolize ethanol we administered a fixed dose of EtOH by IP injection and measured blood EtOH content (BEC) at regular intervals…. [Certain] traits (low metabolism, EtOH consumption and sustained BEC) make finches viable subjects in alcohol studies. We also recorded their songs during periods of elevated BEC and analyzed motif duration and spectral features with Sound Analysis Pro. Importantly, finches remain motivated to sing during intoxification, and EtOH effects on song output are marked by lengthened motif durations and altered spectral features of their songs.”

(Thanks to investigator Pat Shalit for bringing this to our attention.)

Moon-Wednesday and Indian Crimes [studies]

There are a plethora of scientific research projects which have investigated the Moon’s effect on what might seem to be unrelated earthly occurrences. They tend to break down into two categories – those which find there’s no effect, and those which find there is.

No effect, for example on the Spanish suicide rate. Though the lunar cycle does apparently modify the number of gout attacks in Slovakia.

But there’s a third category – for a small yet significant proportion of studies unearth results which appear to wrap another layer of mystery around an already enigmatic subject. Take for example a recent project investigating crime rates in Surat, India. The research – which is published in the International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 419-424 -  found that :

“There was no significant difference of crimes events on full moon days and non full moon days (p = 0.07). On stratification there was no difference between full moon day of week and same non full moon day of week except on Wednesday.”

[our emphasis] The authors offer a possible tentative explanation, which can be found in the full paper: Full Moon Days and Crime: Is there any association?

BONUS :

Post-tonsillectomy hemorrhages are not only not dependent on the lunar cyle, but neither do they occur in clusters of three, nor are there more on Friday the 13ths (or involving redheaded children). See: Superstition and Post-Tonsillectomy Hemorrhage (The Laryngoscope, Volume 114, Issue 11, pp. 2031–2033.)

 

Herscher’s cobbled-together page-turning machine

A modern inventor’s complexly-modest work, documented here in a video. The accompanying caption says: “Joseph Herscher takes a sip of his coffee, pulling string thereby tipping paintings. Balls roll down paintings, lighting burner to boil water causing books to tip. Vase and computer get knocked off the table, releasing tape to open front page of newspaper.”

Goldfish no golder when fed tomatoes

“Color of aquarium fishes has an important role in preference of consumers. Insufficient coloration reduces economical value and not meet consumer demands both.”

In other words, the ‘golder’ a goldfish is, the more valuable it might be. A team from the Fisheries Faculty at Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey (motto: “The university which brings illumination and enlightenment to society …“) therefore contrived a possible method of helping both the consumers and their suppliers. They hypothesised that feeding goldfish with tomato-supplements might make them golder. A three-month-long set of experiments with 255 goldfish followed – but the results could perhaps be described as lacklustre :

“The study showed that tomato powder as being natural carotenoid source was not found to be affective on the fish skin pigmentation.”

The paper : Investigation of the Effect of Tomato Powders as a Dietary Supplement on Skin Pigmentation of Goldfish was presented at the 2012 International Conference of Agricultural Engineering (CIGR-Ageng2012), Valencia, Spain. (motto : “Agriculture & Engineering for a Healthier Life” 

 Thanks to Heptagon @ Wikipedia for providing a tweakable goldfish photo.

The lowest of the low, saxophonally

Behold the subcontrabass saxophone, a musical instrument most people have never heard, or seen, or touched, let alone played. A saxophone instruction book, published by Wiley, says of it:

Subcontrabass saxophone: This is the lowest of the low and has never been produced in large quantities. That’s probably fortunate, because you’d need a trailer to transport it and the lungs of a horse to play it. Nonetheless, the subcontrabass saxophone is still sometimes used in concert.

This video (HT Cliff Pickover) shows a subcontrabass saxophone in what might be called “action”:

Dr. Shit Fun Chew on peeing-through-the-mouth

We closely follow the research of Dr. Shit Fun Chew of National Institute of Education, Singapore. Her most recent piece of work is ‘The Chinese soft-shelled turtle, Pelodiscus sinensis, excretes urea mainly through the mouth instead of the kidney’ [J Exp Biol 2012 215:ii. ; doi:10.1242/jeb.080614]. She and her co-authors write:

This study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that the buccophyaryngeal cavity constitutes an important excretory route for urea in P. sinensis. Results indicate that a major portion of urea was excreted through the mouth instead of the kidney during immersion. [...] These results indicate for the first time that buccopharyngeal villiform processes (BVP) and rhythmic pharyngeal movements were involved in urea excretion in P. sinensis.

Apparently, other soft-shelled turtle excrements still leave the body the usual way. We congratulate Dr Shit Fun Chew on this discovery.

Musicology 101: “Farmer plays… hand farts”

Music history, capture on video long ago, presented now by the Internet Archive, and described by the Public Domain Review:

“Universal Newsreel from 1933 showing Cecil H. Dill, a farmer from Traverse Coty, Michigan, demonstrating his ability to render popular melodies by pressing his hands together. After the performance, which seems to be of Yankee Doodle, Dill modestly tells how he discovered his unusual talent while staring rather intensely into the camera.”

(Thanks to investigator Rachel Fong for bringing this to our attention.)

Coffee 101 with Prof. Merry Corky White, et al.

In this brief video, Professors Merry Corky White, Joan Salga-Blake, and Hans Kornberg elucidate aspects of the phenomenon that is coffee:

BONUS: Professor White’s new book Coffee Life in Japan

The truth is very odd, isn’t it

“It’s an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don’t want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed.

Very odd, isn’t it.”

―A thought expressed in Josephine Tey’s mystery novel The Daughter of Time. The novel’s name comes from the saying “truth is the daughter of time”.

BONUS (somewhat related): An appreciation of the science related to the title of another of Josephine Tey’s mystery novels, The Singing Sands.

BONUS: A short video in which the actor Vincent Price rambles on about Josephine Tey:

Hirsutism + Spironolactone –> Retching –> Pneumomediastinum

A previously unknown chain of events can lead to pneumomediastinum (pneumomediastinum is air in the mediastinum — the space in the middle of the chest, between the lungs), says this new study:

“Pneumomediastinum after retching,” Behcet Al, Cuma Yildirim, Suat Zengin, Cavdar Murat, Sinan Genc, Maruf Sanli, BMJ Case Reports 2012;10.1136/bcr.03.2009.1647. The authors, at Gaziantep University Hospital, Gaziantep, Turkey, report:

“A 25-year-old woman with hirsutism presented to the Emergency Department of the medicine faculty in Gaziantep University… The x-ray study and CT scan of the chest revealed pneumomediastinum. The patient reported that 6 h before presentation she took spironolactone due to hirsutism and she retched. Retching caused the symptoms.”