The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

Dead Fish Tell Tales, Alright.

If you’ve ever wondered what a dead fish is thinking, LiveScience has the data, thanks to a team that gave brain scans to a dead salmon:

It began in 2005 when Bennett picked up a salmon at a local market. An hour later he and colleagues stuck the fish in an fMRI scanner and did a bunch of different scans as part of a project at Dartmouth College to develop MRI protocols. They had previously scanned a pumpkin and a dead bird.

“The salmon was approximately 18 inches long, weighed 3.8 lbs, and was not alive at the time of scanning,” the poster presentation states. “The salmon was shown a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations with a specified emotional valence. The salmon was asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.”

“By far it was our crowning achievement in terms of ridiculous objects to scan,” Bennett recently wrote, on his blog, of the fish.

Another look at the data

Then in 2008, Bennett was working with one of his advisers on a presentation about false positives in MRI data, specifically about misleading results that can come from what’s called a “multiple comparisons problem.” Bennett ran his 2005 fish data through some statistical programs and, sure enough, three false positives showed up in the salmon’s brain.

…

The findings have been submitted to a journal — as a cautionary tale about data interpretation — but not yet accepted for publication….

You find what you’re looking for, far too often and in far too many unexpected ways.

Entered on 30 September 2009 at 6:14 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Raised to rule.

Your kids giving you lip?? Watch out, warns PhysOrg. Those are the ones who’re going to be in charge some day:

Good parenting may better prepare children for future leadership roles if the children happen to challenge the boundaries set out by their parents. This gives the children an opportunity to learn why the rules are in place and then learn from their parents how to achieve their goals without breaking the rules.

“Some of these early examples of rule-breaking behaviour, more the modest type, don’t necessarily produce negative outcomes later in life – that was fairly intriguing,” says Maria Rotundo, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. “It doesn’t mean all children of authoritative parents are going to become leaders, but they are more likely to.”

Entered on 29 September 2009 at 6:26 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Science Art: $2 Silver Certificate, 1896 (Science Presents Steam and Electricity to Commerce and Manufacture.)

Lovely ladies, all of them. Science, the mother of Steam and Electricity, presents her children to their new, lugubriously lolling caretakers. This was, of course, in the years before the Nanny-cam. What were they to do with those innocent children? Why, package and sell, of course. Again, and again, and again.

Allegorical image found via Wikimedia Commons.

Entered on 27 September 2009 at 6:17 in the Science Art file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

SONG: Up, Up, Up_{sub 1}

SONG: Up, Up, Up_sub1.

ABSTRACT:
So, I wrote that song about New Zealand’s not-so-mythical giant eagle, (Harpagornis moorei), but I wasn’t really satisfied with the way the rhythm track came out. And the monks – they didn’t fit once the tempo got halved. That’s the problem with deadlines, even self-imposed ones. Sometimes you just have to get the thing done.

Which is not to say revisions after the fact are out of the question. Here’s a crunchy, Weezer-esque remix. It sounds more like the kind of thing you’d want to hear while being carried away by a flying predator with a 10-foot wingspan. It sounds better than the original (or, if you prefer, the rough draft). I may do another.

Entered on 27 September 2009 at 2:59 in the Songs file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Water on the Moon

SPACE.com says we’re ready to set up shop on Luna, now that we’ve found reserves of water up there:

While scientists continued to suspect that water ice deposits could be found in the coldest spots of south pole craters that never saw sunlight, the consensus became that the rest of the moon was bone dry.

But new observations of the lunar surface made with Chandrayaan-1, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and NASA’s Deep Impact probe, are calling that consensus into question, with multiple detections of the spectral signal of either water or the hydroxyl group (an oxygen and hydrogen chemically bonded).

Also: Go India! Nice to see Chandrayaan getting a little of the glory.

Entered on 25 September 2009 at 6:41 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

We have ways of making you talk. OK, no, not really.

ScienceInsider dares to contradict thousands of Alias fans with “facts” and “experimental proof” from a neuroscientist who explains why torture doesn’t work:

(Quoted from Trends in Cognitive Sciences):
Brain imaging in persons previously subjected to severe torture suggests that abnormal patterns of activation are present in the frontal and temporal lobes, leading to deficits in verbal memory for the recall of traumatic events. A recent meta-analysis of the relationship between pharmacologically-induced cortisol elevations (in the upper physiological range) concludes that it impairs memory retrieval in humans, as do psychosocial stress-induced cortisol elevations. On the other hand, mildly stressful events generally facilitate recall. The experience of capture, transport and subsequent challenging questioning would seem to be more than enough in making suspects reveal information.

The worse the torture, the harder it is to even remember the facts.

Entered on 24 September 2009 at 6:03 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

SONG: Up, Up, Up

SONG: “Up, Up, Up.” _{(To download, double right click and “Save Target As…”)}

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: “Maori legend of man-eating bird is true”, from The Independent, 14 Sep 09, as used in the post “Behold the roc!”

ABSTRACT: I always wanted a pet roc. And I’m sure my pet roc would want me.

Besides guitar and voice recorded late, late at night, I used a Tweakbench VST instrument called “Padawan” as a keyboard in this, and the marvelously bizarre Delay Lama as a background chorus. The words were hard; I had to keep cutting up what I’d already recorded to fit around them.

But I think it’s OK now. A story. A story.

Entered on 23 September 2009 at 8:45 in the Songs file | 1 Observation |  Print

Land of the Rising Solar Panel

PhysOrg reveals why Japan is going to outlast us all – because instead of (or in addition to) prospecting for oil reserves, they’re going to put solar panels in orbit:

The planned solar station will produce 1 Gigawatt of electricity from its four km2 (approximately 2.5 square miles) array of solar panels, which is enough to power just under 300,000 Tokyo homes, at present usage levels. Since the array will be in orbit some 36,000 km (22,500 miles) above the earth’s surface, it will be unaffected by weather conditions and will be able to generate power constantly.

They admit it’s too expensive to be practical now, but once they’ve started, they should find ways to bring the price down significantly. Hopefully, the technology isn’t also useful as a remote-controlled death beam. Because, you know, microwaves from orbit… there’s a profit potential there.

Entered on 22 September 2009 at 6:32 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Unclean! UNCLEAN!

New Scientist’s microbiological reporting really makes you scared to ever go in the shower again:

“Run your shower for a minute or so before you get in, otherwise you’ll get a face full of bacteria.” That’s the advice of microbiologist Norman Pace, who has had the unenviable task of analysing the film of microbes that builds up within shower heads at 45 sites in the US.

Pace and his team from the University of Colorado, Boulder, found significant loads of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM), particularly Mycobacterium avium, at levels 100 times as high as those found in drinking water.

Entered on 21 September 2009 at 6:16 in the Science file | Care to make an observation? |  Print

Science Art: Flying Lemur, Webster’s New International, 1911.

This is the flying lemur, or colugo, also known as the order Dermoptera – the “skin-wings.” They’re related to shrews and bats moreso than real lemurs, which is too bad. It’d be cool to have these a little closer on the family tree. They’re as big as cats and they hang glide through the jungles of South Asia. You’re hiking along, hacking your way through lianas and climbing over giant roots, when all of a sudden, look out! Colugo!

Illustration from Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1911, G & C Miriam Co. Springfield, MA, [found here.]

Entered on 20 September 2009 at 6:56 in the Science Art file | Care to make an observation? |  Print