Tag Archives: science news

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I’m sure that most of you have heard about CERN’s Higgs Boson discovery by now. Today‘s announcement was a historic moment for physicists and physics enthusiasts everywhere. As a result, anyone in the twittersphere/blogoshere/web with even the mildest interest in science seems to have caught Higgs-fever. The resulting web chatter is an interesting (AND RARE!) illustration of the clash between pop culture and physics.

In honour of this historic day in Science with a capital “S,” I thought I would share some of my top picks of Higgs-related images, articles, and videos that have been circulation around the interwebs today.

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Lonesome George, the last of his kind, died on Sunday, June 24th 2012.

Photo Credit: zane.hollingsworth

It’s time for another round of Top 3 Science Links. In the past week, a lot of great science stories have broken, including the announcement of a CERN press conference on July 4th, during which the discovery of the Higgs Boson might be annouced, the publication of results from the Human Microbiome Project, and the release of one of two controversial human-bird flu  transmission studies.

Given the popularity of these news stories, it is probable that you might have missed the following three articles. Luckily, you’ve stumbled upon this blog post, thus ensuring that you remain up-to-date on everything science.

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Photo Credit: Andrew.T@NN

Applied Cognitive Psychology recently published a study on one of the newest ways we, as humans, have found of obstructing traffic – walking while texting (WwT). I, myself, have been guilty of WwT, but I’ve recently resolved to curb my “mobile” texting habits because, to be honest, I find the practice incredibly annoying.

Photo Credit: JPott

Adepts of WwT tend to walk slowly and aimlessly, which makes them very hard to pass on the sidewalk. Granted, they mostly just endanger themselves, but their lack of spatial awareness makes them a hazard nonetheless. As you can tell, my feelings on the subject are rather strong, so I was tickled when I read the title of the following study: “Practicing Safe Text: the impact of Texting on Walking Behaviour.”

In this study, the researchers, headed by Dr. Stacy M. Lopresti-Goodman of Marymount University, looked at how walking while texting alters an individual’s own walking behaviour. The researchers found that, on average, people who engaged in WwT were much more cautious than walkers who weren’t texting. Despite this excess in caution, “texters” did not avoid obstacles with more ease than “non-texters.” The scientists concluded that being overly cautious while texting does not decrease the chances of being involved in an accident.

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A field experiment conducted by scientists from the University of Milano-Bicocca has demonstrated that high levels of car pollution causes Ragweed pollen (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) to be more allergenic.

Photo credit: Alfi007

This has the inconvenient and worrisome effect of causing more people to develop allergies to the pollen in their environment. Interestingly, the difference does not lie in the percentage of pollen grains distributed by plants along high-traffic roads compared to plants found in lower-traffic areas. Rather, the difference was found in the allergenicity of the pollen grains themselves, where the pollen collected from the plants in higher-traffic areas contained more allergens than their low-traffic counterparts.

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Winter in Canada can mean, in no particular order, tremendous amounts of snow, cold temperatures and hot drinks, but for many of us, Winter also means dry skin.

In this Week’s Ontarion, I covered a story about scientists who determined if the subsequent feeling of itchiness one can get from dry skin is more pronounced depending on the location of the itch on the body. They also looked at whether the pleasurability of scratching said itch varied depending on the site of the itch.They found that  the relationship between the pleasure one gets from scratching and the level of itchiness of a certain area is not always a direct one. Read my article to find out more!

Now for some science links….

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Ontario's eastern hog-nosed snake

This week, I was lucky enough to handle a few live Ontario snakes during my herpetology lab course. This was quite a treat for me because, for as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by reptiles, especially snakes. Unfortunately, these incredibly beautiful animals are also highly misunderstood. In Canada, they are often killed simply because they are snakes, even though they pose little or no threat to humans. The eastern Hog-nosed I am holding on the left is a species at risk in Ontario.

 

In India, certain snake species are threatened because their skin and, in the case of venomous snakes, their venom are highly coveted, despite being protected under the Wildlife Act of 1972.

Because of the growing concern over the potential loss of these precious herps, scientists have been trying to develop new methods of identifying snake species used to make the products confiscated from poachers.

Most recently, Indian scientists from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad developed a method of identifying species of snakes from dried snake venom samples. This study, published in published the Journal of Forensic Sciences, is the first successful attempt at DNA isolation and species identification through dried snake venom.

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C. Strife

This week’s Ontarion featured a Scientifically Inclined article entitled “Your Brain on Hunger”. In this piece, I write about two recently published studies on ways your body, and more importantly your brain, experiences hunger.

The first study I mention explored previous reports that sleep deprivation increases hunger.

In order to do so, scientists conducted fMRIs on sleep-deprived participants while showing them pictures of food. They found that the sleep-deprived participants experienced significantly more brain activation in the right anterior cingulate cortex, a region of the brain linked to food representations and reward, than in the rested participants.

The second study looked at a gene variant of the CD36 gene found in 20% of the population. This variant causes one to produce less CD36 protein, which in turn makes you less likely to be repulsed by foods with a high fat content.

Interesting stuff indeed! And now, some more interesting science articles to satisfy your weekly cravings…

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lauralucia

Your voice can say a lot about you. Your delivery, for instance, is a great indicator of temperament. Is your voice aggressive? Confident? Gentle? Soothing? Sexy?

Australian scientists have determined that your voice can also indicate some very surprising things about you, like how fertile you might be.

Previous studies have determined that, as far as heterosexual men and women go, women prefer men who have low-pitched “masculine” voices and men prefer women with high-pitched “feminine” voices. Typically, these types of voices are deemed more attractive.

For the longest time, it was thought that this preference might have developed as an indicator of mate quality, meaning that the “sexier” your voice was, the better mate you’d make. A new study challenges this idea. Australian scientists have determined that men with high-pitched voices have more concentrated sperm than men with low-pitched voices, meaning that a tenor is more fertile than a bass. Read my Ontarion article to find out more!

Here are this week’s top science links…

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School is back in session and so is the Ontarion! This week, I wrote about tiny creatures that drives most of us completely crazy: Mosquitoes.

enamel

I enjoy camping or going out for walks in the woods, but, sadly, I have always had to prepare myself mentally for the impending onslaught of mosquitoes whenever I do so.  I don’t know many people who enjoy the company of these flying insects, but some people are less bothered by them than others.

Sure, some of these people have a higher tolerance, but a lucky few simply don’t get bitten as often as most of us do.

I have always wondered why that would be and now there’s an answer! As it turns out, mosquitoes are attracted to certain combinations of skin microbiota and are repelled by others. The bacteria present on my skin is the culprit! Read the article I wrote on this subject in this week’s issue of the Ontarion, the University of Guelph’s independent student newspaper, to find out more.

Top 3 Science Links

I was terribly excited about writing this post today because I had so many interesting science articles to choose from. Here’s the cream of the crop:

1. Global warming’s unexpected consequences: Smarter lizards? 

copyright Petr Baum

The scincid lizards (Bassiana duperreyi) might be one of the few reptiles to benefit from global warming. Lizard eggs were incubated in warm and cold conditions. The resulting juvenile lizards from the warm treatment were found to be smarter than the cold treatment ones because they didn’t escape to an inaccessible hideout when startled.

 

2. Scientists use DNA from salmon testes to build a new data storage device! 

DNA is great for using in electronics because it reacts well with metal. It can be used to develop biopolymers that can form thinner films than non-DNA polymers. The researchers used DNA from Salmon testes, which is readily available, cheap and biofriendly, to make a thin DNA-nanoparticle film.

They were able to write data onto the film thanks to a laser. You can read the data by sending a current through the film. This type of data storage device isn’t rewritable for now but this is an incredibly cool DNA application nonetheless!

3. Swallowing a capsule will allow doctors to explore your gut. 

This little pill has successfully allowed researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to investigate a patient’s digestive track. The capsule is equipped with a camera and can be steered thanks to an MRI machine. Pictures are uploaded onto a screen wirelessly. Amazing.

Science Video of the week

Finally, a CAT video! Ever wondered what makes cats react to catnip the way they do? Watch this video.

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Yesterday, I was informed that I was chosen to serve as a science reporter at the 2012 AAAS annual meeting in Vancouver in February by the Canadian Science Writer’s Association. I am extremely excited by the prospect of listening to the amazing speakers that will be in attendance this year. This will be my first chance to learn what it means to be a member of “the press”. I hope to learn as much as I can from the scientists and the science reporters that will be present. I plan to write a long blog post about the experience when I get back to Guelph. Here’s a video about the conference:
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Now, here are this week’s Top 3 Science Links, for your reading enjoyment.

 

Top 3 Science Links:

1.  Nature’s Sense of Humour: A Fish Pretending to be an Octopus Pretending to be a Fish

Screen shot from the video

Scientists in Indonesia have identified a strange association between the black-marble jawfish (stalix cf. histrio) and the mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus), in which the small jawfish mimics the octopus and hides itself by clinging to it. The mimic octopus has been known to copy the colour patterns of various unsavoury fish such as the toxic flatfish and even some sea snakes, so biologists believe that the jawfish is taking advantage of the octopus’ mimicking abilities to protect itself from predators.

 

Here’s a video of the strange pairing:

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2. Stradivarius-Schmadivarius

Back in November, I wrote a blog post about a group of researchers that had managed to create a perfect replica of a stradivarius violin, made by the famous luthier Antonio Stradivari in the 17th century. They had done so in the hope of recreating the previously unmatched sound of these rare and highly sought-after instruments.

Unfortunately for them, a double-blind experiment in which violin experts were prevented from seeing the instrument they were playing has demonstrated that even violin experts are unable to tell a stradivarius violin from a modern high-quality violin. In fact, less than half of the participants chose a stradivarius as their favorite instrument when they didn’t know the violin’s origin.   

 

3. A two-toed sloth’s Closest Relative Will Surprise You

Three-toed sloth - Photo by Joel Sartore

 

I love sloths. The fact that these incredibly slow and generally immobile animals haven’t been wiped out by faster and more ferocious predators is remarkable in itself, but this new discovery makes them even more note-worthy.

 

Wired magazine reports that the two-toed sloth is more closely related to Megalonyx, an ancient giant bear-like sloth, than to the remarkably similar three-toed sloth.

Two-toed sloth - Photo by Roy Toft

This means that these two types of sloths are in fact a case of convergent evolution, where animals that aren’t closely related evolve to develop similar traits or life strategies.

Convergent evolution usually indicates just how effective or advantageous a trait is. A specific trait is thought to be more advantageous if it is prevalent in a number of distantly related species who share a set of evolutionary constraints.

Science Video of the Week

Although the sloth wired article had a link to an amazingly cute video of baby sloths, I feel compelled to add my very own sloth video to the mix:

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