Mycetozoa

Happy 200th Darwin

2009-02-12T08:33:00.000-08:00

Two centuries ago, Charles Darwin was born. This deserves some celebration.

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sponge shrimp

2008-12-28T22:06:00.000-08:00

Bees, wasps, ants, termites, naked mole rats... I find animals that form colonies like these absolutely fascinating. I recently found out that some shrimp were on the list too!

The sponge shrimp, Synalpheus regalis, actually.

Here's a fantastic scientific article on them.

And here is an overview if you don't have time for the above article.

The sponge shrimp were discovered a while ago, but I think they're pretty fascinating, even if it is old news. The structure of the colonies, with a fertile breeding queen and non-breeding members separated into worker and warrior castes, is pretty amazing. Not quite as cool as naked mole rats, but still.

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Searchwiki

2008-11-20T19:13:00.001-08:00

Google has a new toy for searches: Searchwiki.

In principle, it sounds kind of awesome. But between bookmarks, custom searching, and Google Notebook, I am feeling as if they could start to consolidate all this search/tag gadgetry somehow (they will, eventually, I'm sure). It does make the results page look a bit cluttered though. Well, okay, not cluttered so much as less sleek. And moving stuff around can be pretty wonky, but as it affects only your own search results, and only while logged in, and can be completely reset/undone, eh is all good.

Plus making public notes about websites is kind of amusing (can 'o worms, am sure).

Searchwiki really would have been SO DAMNED USEFUL last semester, when I was doing a bazillion websearches for my thesis. *shakes fist* Still, Google gets awesomepoints, as always.

On a side note, apparently they're closing down Google Lively, which makes me sad, as I think it had a lot of potential, especially with Sketchup, but at the same time was a bit clunky.

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I Can Has Wooly Mammoth?

2008-11-20T19:07:00.000-08:00

In line with my previous post, it apparently could happen - instead of mutant dino-chickens, we could get mutant-woolly-elephants. Of course, it'd cost 10 million dollars. ;P

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Cool Cloning

2008-11-08T15:19:00.000-08:00

Scientists cloned a mouse from a frozen, 16-year-old corpse. That's pretty cool; it makes cloning a mammoth seem just a step away, as there are certainly some frozen mammoths lying around.

Me, though, I am still waiting for someone to genetically engineer a dinosaur-like creature from a modern day bird. Mutant dino-chicken ftw!

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I Love Debunkery

2008-11-08T12:43:00.000-08:00

Which of the following health-related beliefs is actually supported by science?

the advice that you should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
the much-overused science fiction myth that people use only 10 percent of their brains
that hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
that shaving hair causes it to grow back worse than before
that reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
that eating turkey makes people sleepy
and that cellphones are a risk to equipment in hospitals

Answer: none of them.

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X-rays & sticky tape

2008-10-28T10:15:00.000-07:00

Apparently, sticky tape gives off x-rays when it is peeled off in a vacuum.

That is awesome.

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Happy National Mole Day

2008-10-23T06:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.moleday.org/

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Energy-saving tips from Google

2008-10-21T18:33:00.001-07:00

Well, it's cute, with a Halloween-y theme. Google has an energy calculator and tips on saving energy this winter. Hearts to Google.

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Worm Grunting Explained

2008-10-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ever hunted worms by driving a stake into the ground and rubbing something across the top to produce a grunting noise? Ever wondered why hundreds of them start appearing like magic? Apparently, it's because of moles. Or rather, because it sounds like a moles digging. Nifty.

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12-year-old-burger

2008-10-13T09:43:00.000-07:00

So... someone put a McDonalds burger in a box for 12 years, and apparently it still looks the same as when she got it.

Now, most people would go "eeeew." But I wonder, honestly, why? Are people so attached to moldy food that they can't deal with a food that hasn't gone bad? Personally, I'd rather eat something with preservatives than get food poisoning. The "eeew" factor for the burger is a testament to how much consumers allow advertizing to do their thinking for them. I'm not particularly fond of fast food in general, but I do appreciate a good preservative. Wouldn't you rather eat something you know to be mold-free than something that goes bad overnight?

On a side note, it looks like the the woman uses the burger as a shock-tactic, which figures. Me, I wonder how that thing smells by now, or whether it has dessicated to the point where nothing will grow on it. I'd love it if I could cook food and leave it in a cupboard and still have it edible for years. I doubt the burger is still edible, though, as I've found bread bits lost under counters that have dessicated and gone stale, but remained mold-free. So, congratulations, it's probably a mummified burger. But other than that, the burger looking the same for 12 years doesn't really mean anything - except maybe that her cupboards weren't humid enough for mold growth. No moisture = no mold. It's not rocket science, people. And probably has little or nothing to do with the preservatives in the burger itself.

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another xkcd ftw

2008-10-09T20:56:00.001-07:00

So, apparently, YouTube took the advice of this xkcd strip, and actually implemented an audio preview to comments. YouTube (and through it, Google) has just gained 100 awesomepoints.

Also, the expected follow-up to the Universe strip: Depth.

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More reasons to keep loving Google

2008-10-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

Google can keep you from sending e-mails while drunk - unless, perhaps, you're really good at math while drunk? Gmail Goggles is both fantastic and hilarious. When I first saw this, I suspected it might be some kind of joke - Google's April fools stuff is pretty awesome (loved the the backdated e-mails), but it's not April. And apparently, Google Goggles is a real feature. The fact that someone actually worked on this makes Gmail a hundred times more awesome. Even if I'm not in the habit of sending drunken e-mails, it still makes me chuckle.

There's also a Forgotten Attachment Detector. Seriously.

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Glowing Science

2008-10-08T08:02:00.000-07:00

The Nobel Prize for chemistry was announced, and I have to agree, the science that is being done using GFP is unbelievably cool.

It's the sort of stuff I wish I could be doing. Someday, perhaps. Someday.

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Nobel Prizes

2008-10-07T18:50:00.001-07:00

I almost forgot: http://nobelprize.org/index.html

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Ig Nobel website

2008-10-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update: http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2008

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some news

2008-10-03T05:04:00.000-07:00

The Ig Nobel prizes have been awarded (clickey - the actual website seems to be down atm). My favorite, unsurprisingly, is the cognitive science one - studying the maze navigating ability of slime molds. Also, I'd love to read the study that won the medicine category. If cheap fake medicine is less effective than expensive fake medicine, it's a good thing so much fake medicine is so expensive and not covered by insurance. At least now you know you're paying for more effective fakeness.

On a more horrifying note, this is sick. Personally, I agree with Anch - I think they should feed this kid to the crocodile. -_-;

And, Microsoft seems to have decided that if they can't beat Google at search technology, they can at least bribe people to use theirs.

And lastly, a rare insect, the scaly cricket, has been confirmed alive and well on a Devon beach, but what I love about this story is that a cornnish pasty was used as a lure to finally capture the critter. Those things are delicious (the pasty, not the cricket).

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Happy Birthday NASA

2008-10-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

Happy 50th birthday, NASA!

*raises glass* And here's to 50 more. May you keep sending cute little robots to Mars. <3 the little robots. And it snowed on Mars yesterday.

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The Universe

2008-09-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

A day late, but what the hey. The latest xkcd is amazing. Go see:

Clickey clickey.

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13-Million-Digit Pime Number

2008-09-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

GIMPS (the Great Mersenne Prime Search) is a program that looks for primes while whatever computer it's on is idle. In late August, at UCLA, a computer running GIMPS found a 13-million-digit prime number, the first explicitly known prime that's more than 10 million digits - for which they could win part of $100,000. Pretty sweet. The UCLA has an FAQ page here.

And if you're curious, the actual number (2^^43112609-1) can be seen here. If you're really adventurous, there's a 17-meg file halfway down the page with the entire number - all 12,978,189 digits.

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Welcome

2008-09-29T08:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Mycetozoa.

This is a science blog.

The bloggery here shall include such diverse subjects as recent interesting and unusual scientific discoveries, bizarre tidbits of knowledge that I come across, funny or neat or disastrous lab-related stories, poking of holes in pseudoscience, biochemistry, fungi, freakishly cool mathematics sometimes, slime molds (obviously), the chemistry in herbalism and other drug-related things, a lot of health-related folklore, bits of history or mythology, truckloads of skepticism, lopsided ramblings about religion and paranormal phenomena, thoughts on life as a premed zombie, opinions on medical sociology and similar horrors, geekery and gamery, links to research and other things that I find worthwhile, random technology, and anything else vaguely science-related that I can think of. It shall be fun, mostly experimental, hopefully entertaining, and marginally educational.

I may, at some point, pull out my list of mandrake folklore.

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Dictyosteliida

2008-09-29T01:54:00.000-07:00

Testing... 1..2.. 3

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