What the Scientists Are Thnking About

“Is it just me or does this water feel really hot?”
“Nuts! I forgot to take off my trinkets again!”
Stop splashing! You’re getting my needlepoint wet!”

 

Studying Things That Got Stuck in the Roman Drains for New Insights

In an effort to tell us something we don’t already know, a new study of the objects lost down the drains of ancient Roman bath houses has shed light on the fact that Romans who went swimming with their jewelry on in ancient times were just as likely to lose it as people who go swimming today with their jewelry on.

Alissa Whitmore, a doctoral candidate at the University of Iowa, who has been having trouble sleeping at night what with all her worrying about what the Romans were doing all day in the bathtub,, has concluded– judging from the things that got stuck in the drain –that varied activities took place.

After studying the artifacts like nobody’s business, Whitmore found strong evidence suggesting that Romans went to the baths not only to bath, but also to pull  teeth, perform operations, eat meat with bones in it, and do needle point.

“But most of these activities would not have taken place in the water, but in dressing rooms  or common seating areas.” Whitmore stated in the most authoritative I practically have my doctoral voice she could muster.

“What the Romans really needed back then was a plumber’s helper!”  Alissa Whitmore wished she would have said after the interview was over.

Massive Spider Discovered in Sri Lanka

Locals in Sri Lanka have discovered a new species of Tarantula big enough to cover a human face.  Spider researcher, Ranil Nanayakkara, – who just so happened to be wandering around Sri Lanka looking for new spider species the day it was discovered, still has no idea why locals in Sri Lanka used their faces to measure the spider instead of a ruler.

The new species was named after a local police inspector and will be called the Michael Rajakumar Purajah spider, a name that pays little heed to the fact that if a local wakes up and finds a Michael Rajakumar Purajah spider on his face, he’ll be a goner before he can shout, “Help! There’s a Michael Rajakumar Purajah spider on my face!”

“What? Of course I’m not going to mess with your DNA, Danny, trust me! You’ll see.”

USAF Promises Not to Kill Anybody By Messing with Their DNA, Honest!

In an effort to squander $49 million tax-payer dollars as quickly as possible, the United States Air Force has announced it is studying the bio-effects of weapons utilizing microwaves and radio waves to find out how viable it is to build exotic new “energy weapons” in order to more effectively ruin the lives of innocent people in less powerful countries and destroy the infra-structures therein.

The USAF is insisting it needs to study the effects of such weapons on the human body by pretending they are worried about it being used on Americans by another country.

“To be clear:  The Air Force doesn’t want to kill you by messing with your DNA.” Somebody at the Air Force said.   “Where’s the fun in that?”  Somebody else at the Air Force almost added.

The announcement notes that the tests may involve human subjects (and animals) but stresses not to worry about it because The USAF crosses its collective heart and hopes to die that they will definitely not be testing anything that is completely undetectable by the human population on humans or animals who haven’t stepped forward and allowed themselves to be microwaved and radio-waved on their own accord.

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Until next time . . . I love you

What the Scientists Are Thinking About

Oh dear me, Dear Readers! It seems our hard-working scientists just never take any time off when it comes to thinking stuff up.  Let’s take a look at what they are thinking about now, shall we?

“Him nice duck.”
“Him not duck. Him Turducken.”

Duck Successfully Fathers Chicken

After getting hungry for lunch, veterinary researchers in a  laboratory in Dubai, thought it would be delicious a good idea to create their version of the mythical culinary animal known as a Turducken, which is a duck that is stuffed inside a chicken that is stuffed inside a turkey.

The Dubai Researchers simply injected a chicken’s DNA into the reproductive organs of a male duck embryo and Viola!  Turducken!  A male duck that produces chicken sperm.  “This is one lucky duck! One Dubai researcher exclaimed.  “He can party hardy and never have to worry about a paternity suit,” the Dubai researcher stopped just short of saying.

The researchers claimed their original goal for scientifically messing around with ducks and chickens was to genetically modify chickens to produce more fertile hens, but when researchers started counting how many chickens there already were, they quit at 50 billion — partly due to the fact that chickens are annoying to count and partly due to the fact that the researchers couldn’t agree on what number came after 50 billion.

Researchers have decided, instead, to use their new-found Turducken skills to propagate endangered species and bring back extinct species which, of course, is the standard fallback goal of all scientific research.

This wrinkled tunic definitely pre-dates the Iron Age.

Melting Glaciers Reveal Pre-Vikings Were Litter-ers.

A glacier that is melting in Norway due to global warming — has unveiled a tunic, a mitten, a Bronze Age leather shoe and a variety of ancient bows and arrows strewn about haphazardly — with nary an ancient waste receptacle in sight.

A greenish-brown, loose-fitting tunic (carbon dated at year 300) was uncovered –which researchers think would have fit a person 5 feet 9 inches tall –  and would have been the equivalent of today’s little black dress.  Researchers went on to agree the tunic would have been suitable attire for most ancient social engagements though perhaps a little too formal for casual,  human-sacrifice Friday.

“It’s worrying that the glaciers are melting due to global warming, but it’s still exciting for us Archeologists!” Lars Piloe, a Danish archaeologist, enthused while stifling the urge and jump up and down and scream hallelujah!

Scientists believe the shrinkage of the glaciers is due to global warming caused from people burning way too many fossil fuels and from people just not giving  a rip about the earth.  Researchers are scratching their heads, however, as to the cause of  global warming in the year 300 — when the glaciers were apparently as thin as they are now, but people weren’t burning nearly as many fossil fuels, although it is widely accepted by the scientific community that people didn’t give a rip about the earth then either.

Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo Notes Go on Sale

Buzz Aldrin’s second-by-second account as Neil Armstrong piloted the Lunar Module Eagle towards the moon in 1969 are due to go on sale.  Some of the highlights of his entries are purported to be:

• Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear I smell Limburger cheese.
• @$%!@#X!  Just realized we forgot the Tang!
• Ha ha!  Just thought of something!  The guy who will be taking One Giant Step for Mankind’s name is Kneel.

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Until next time . . . I love you

What the Scientists are Thinking About

Hello Dear Readers! Well it’s Monday morning again and time to check in to see what our scientists have been thinking about!

“Why you no eat?”
“Me too busy looking at bug in sand.”

Neanderthals Large Eyes Caused Their Demise

After much finger tapping during an impressive stint of scholarly thinking, British researchers have come to the conclusion that Neanderthal became extinct because their eyes were too large.

This conclusion was published in an actual magazine called, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, thus instantly transforming the British researchers’ Neanderthal Big Eye Extinction Theory into a solid scientific fact.

Touted as the biggest idea to hit the British Researcher circuit since the landmark decision that the “h” in Neanderthal is silent, British researchers are giddy over the idea that they have been able to think up something else so good, so soon!

After measuring the eye-sockets of 32 Neanderthal skulls, Eiluned Pierce of Oxford University found they were definitely larger than they should be.  A finding that dovetails nicely with an earlier theory thought up by British Researchers that Neanderthal’s eyes were bigger because Neanderthal lived in Europe, which is way cloudier, making it much harder to see, thus their eyes got bigger and bigger until they were able to see too good.

This caused the Neanderthal to spend so much time admiring the details of fern leaves and other prehistoric things, they completely forgot what their names were and how to eat.

“We infer the  Neanderthals’ more visually focused brain structure might also have affected their ability to form larger groups – if you live in a larger group, you need a larger brain in order to process all those extra relationships,” Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum of London — who has 20/20 vision, and who has lived alone in a one-room apartment his entire adult life — speculated.

What, Me Worry?

The Human Race is Getting Dumber and Dumber

“The human race is getting dumber and dumber and losing their cognitive abilities and becoming more emotionally unstable.”  Stanford University researcher, Dr. Gerald Crabtree has decided to say for lack of thinking up anything better to say.

“People with specific adverse genetic mutations are more likely than ever to survive and live amongst the ‘strong.’  Darwin’s survival of the fittest is less applicable in today’s society.” Dr. Crabtree explained after looking up the meaning of the words ‘mutation’, ‘genetic’, and ‘applicable’ and then googling to find out who the heck Darwin was.

Galileo “El Guapo” Galilei

People of Today Are Just Like the People Back in The Day!

Research teams from Royal Holloway, the British Library and Reading University headed by Professor Jane Everson have discovered — after exhaustively rifling through the boxes in the British Museum basement labeled 16th and 17th century –  that people back in the 16th and 17th centuries were just exactly like the people of today!

“Just as we create user names for our profiles on Facebook and Twitter and create circles of friends on Google plus, these scholars created nicknames, shared and commented on topical ideas, news of the day and exchanged poems, music and plays — just like we do — only instead of using the internet, they used the mail!” Professor Jane Everson effervesced breathlessly.

The researchers are taking great delight in decoding the nicknames that the 16th and 17th century scholars used — a task that may take years.

However,  to ensure that what the researchers are being paid to do this is well worth it, they plan to use only words that have three or more syllables when writing up their findings for Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

And there you have it Dear Readers!  Our weekly glimpse into the scientific minds of our scientific community!

Until next time . . . I love you

What The Scientists Are Thinking About

Did Neanderthals Sing Opera?

“do re me fa so la ti Doh!”

In his book entitled, The Singing Neanderthals,  Steven Mithen, has decided that Neanderthals sang opera as a form of pre-linguistic communication.

“The musicality of the Neanderthals can be identified more with  opera than with rap because in addition to music, these hominids also used dance and body language as forms of communication.”  said Mithen, a researcher who has made it his life’s work to think up things Neanderthals might have done and then state them in such a way as to make him sound like he knows what he’s talking about.

After staring at several Neanderthal skeletons, Mithen has ascertained  that there is no question that several, if not all, were definitely making “jazz hands” when they died.

Mithen who is a researcher at the University of Reading, and who is purported to be an excellent reader, condescended to explain that the Neanderthal sang opera and not rap because “Rap is associated with a particular type of music based on words and phrases, something Neanderthals lacked,”  Mitchen went on to explain in an unprecedented burst of making stuff up.

When told that operas contain many words and phrases, Mithen stated that he had never had the time to attend an actual opera due to his round-the-clock dedication to making stuff up about the Neanderthals shortly before kicking the reporter in the shins and running away.

“Woof? Roof? Arf possibly?

What Do Dogs Say When They Bark?

After exhaustively watching dogs, Professional Dog Barking Researcher, Raymond Coppinger, has concluded that dogs “tend to bark quite a lot– often at strangers or at anyone who walks by” and that “the purpose and significance of dog barking is not entirely understood and seems to occur indiscriminately.”

Blown away by his observations, but being careful not to use too many exclamation marks when writing up his findings in an effort to keep things as scientific as possible, Raymond Coppinger also pointed out that barking dogs are simply relieving some inner state of arousal.  “The arousal model is that dogs do not have much control over their barks.”

Raymond Coppinger spent hundreds of hours wondering, scientifically, (which made the hours billable) about the barking of his own dog, Mystique.

If there were a strange man with a gun approaching the house, Raymond Coppinger proposed, would Mystique bark in a way that would alert him that there was something dangerous and different about the person?

Unfortunately, Raymond Coppinger was recently shot dead by a strange man with a gun who approached his house after failing to hear any barking at all, so, sadly, science will never know the answer to that question.

“Dang! This ring used to fit!”

King Richard III Skeleton Find Confirmed

The final resting place of a former English King has finally been discovered after 528 years of looking.

It is purported that researchers began their search for the grave of King Richard III a couple days after originally burying him in 1485.  It seems the serf in charge of bringing King Richard III’s headstone to the churchyard contracted The Sweating Sickness, became delirious, got all turned around and cattywampus and nobody has seen him or it since.

“It is the academic conclusion of the University of Leicester that the individual exhumed at Greyfriars in August 2012 is indeed, King Richard III the last Plantagenet King of England,” Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist of the four-year project said in his very deepest voice he reserves only for important statements such as this one.

The quest for King Richard III was embarked upon by the University of Leicester after enthusiastic amateurs somehow knew that Richard III might be buried underneath a parking lot which they picked at random to be the parking lot wherein the body of King Richard III has been residing for the last 528 years.

“Everyone thought I was mad when I wanted to dig up the parking lot!” said Philippa Langely, a member and soon-to-be president of the Where’s Richard III? Society.

Work has already begun on digging up a parking lot at an undisclosed location where King Richard III will be re-buried, thus ensuring that the University of Leicester will have something to look forward to finding.

Until next time . . . I love you

What the Scientists are Thinking About

Hello Dear Readers! And here we are stranded on the isle of Monday once again! Let’s take a few minutes out of our busy Monday to peer into the levers and pulleys the comprise the thinking apparatuses of our beloved scientists and researchers!  Come join me, won’t you?

Let’s see . . . eenie meenie miney mo . . .

Seti Focuses Efforts on Listening to  Known Exo-Planets

Seti, a group of researchers who live more by the story Horton Hears a Who than any other branch of the scientific community, have recently decided to point their telescopes at 86 stars that are known to have planets.

Up until now, the researchers at Seti, all with PhD’s in Listening Closely,  were taking turns playing “spin the telescope” to decide which direction they should listen in.  Unfortunately, aside from one shotgun wedding, this method yielded no results.

“The big challenge with these kinds of observations is to rule out the false positives generated on Earth,” Jill Tarter, Seti VIP was quoted as saying after  getting her hopes up last winter over what she thought was an intelligent signal from out there, but was later identified as a Portuguese broadcast of I Dream of Jeannie by one of the members of the Seti janitorial team.

Casino or bust!

Keeping Dead Languages Alive Is Easy, It’s Finding People to Talk to That’s the Rub.

Researchers, whose jobs it is to sit around and pin dates on things that will  happen in the future, have recently decided that by the year 2100, the mankind will have lost half the languages that now spoken.

Luckily, in California, Eureka High School has launched a program to keep alive the Native-American language, Yurok, which was down to only six native speakers in 1990, and today, thanks to the schools efforts, there are now over 300 high school kids who speak Yurok.

“Now it’s just a matter of locating the only six people on earth who can understand them,” the Eureka High School principal was quoted as saying after loading up the rooter bus with 300 fluent Yurok speakers and heading off to the casino.

One . . . two . . . wait wait wait . . . one . . . two . . .wait wait wait . . . one . . .two . . .

Felix Baumgartner Fell Faster Than Originally Thought

With a name like Felix Baumgartner, Felix Baumgartner felt compelled to do something spectacular on behalf of all the other Felix Baumgartners of the world which is why last October, he ascended to a height of more than 120,000 feet in a special helium balloon before stepping off and plummeting back down to earth.

Since then, Mathematicians have been burning up their Texas Instrument calculators in an effort to figure out exactly how fast Felix Baumgartner was actually falling.

As a result, the original figure of 843.6 miles an hour has been upgraded to ten miles an hour faster  — causing the clouds through which Felix Baumgartner was falling to be remembered even blurrier in his mind’s eye than he was previously remembering them to be.

Researchers say the lessons learned from the jump will inform the development of new ideas for emergency evacuation from things like spacecraft, experimental aircraft and the Empire State Building.

And there you have it, Dear Readers, today’s foray into the minds of our scientific community!

Until next time . . . I love you

What the Scientists are Thinking About

Hello Dear Readers!  It’s Monday morning and what better time to sneak up behind the scientists to find out what they are thinking about!  Won’t you join me?

Solar System Habitable Zone Redefined
In an effort to find something to occupy them until lunch, Ravi Kopparapu and an undisclosed amount of scientific researchers at Penn State University decided to redefine the official definition of a Habitable Planet zone which they were ecstatic to discover hadn’t been updated since 1993!

“Those habitable zones have not been updated in the last 20 years,” Ravi Kopparapu was quoted as saying after wearing out his eraser as well as those of his colleagues doing the math to find out how many years it had been.

Unfortunately, after making up the new definition of a Habitable Planet Zone,  Ravie Kopparapu and his scientific team of researchers were inconsolable having found out that Earth is no longer smack dab in the middle of a habitable zone-; but according to the new definition they came up with  –  is now too hot to support life of any kind.

“The fact that the earth is robustly life friendly is probably because neither definition accounts for clouds.” The Penn State scientific researchers hastily concluded after looking at the clock and realizing they should have gone to lunch five minutes ago.

Scientists Say ‘extinction not always a bad thing’

The Auks are extinct . . . finally!

Employees at the Natural History Museum have come to the conclusion that the total extinction of 99 percent of the species that have ever lived on the planet earth is really a blessing in disguise and are taking their sweet time putting together an exhibit that will feature extinct animals.

The exhibit will attempt to show how rather than being destructive, extinction can help to increase biodiversity by making room for a new species!

For instance, the extinction of the giant Irish elk around 11,000 years ago has been credited with benefiting the population of a smaller, rival species of elk which are not only tastier, but are also  far less scary for hunters to shoot and kill.

The exhibit will also feature the most scientifically accurate model of the Auk, the flightless, penguin-like bird which was hunted to extinction in the mid-19th century — which, they admit, is quite sad, but if the Auk had never gone extinct, several job openings at the Museum of Natural History for Professional Extinct-Bird Replicators would have never come into existence.

Roman Toilet Paper Mistaken for Toys

Mr. Whipple no likee

British researchers who like to hang out at the British Museum are laughing –many for the very first time!

It seems Dr. Robert Symmons, curator of the Fishborne Roman Palace in West Sussex has announced that ceramic disks, once identified as gaming pieces that British Museum curators liked to fool around with on their lunch hours — were not gaming pieces at all — but, instead, were used by ancient Romans as toilet paper.

“Despite the rounded edges, the disks would have been uncomfortable by modern standards,” Dr. Robert Symmons ascertained — possibly after consulting with the world’s most highly regarded toilet paper expert, Mr. Whipple.

Amid an unprecedented amount of giggling at the British Museum, Dr. Robert Symmons went on to further ascertain that Romans often inscribed the names of people they did not like on the disks before using them.

When asked why the particular disk Dr. Robert Symmons was holding (while wearing his new latex gloves!) had the name of Dr. Robert Symmons inscribed on it, Dr. Robert Symmons went on to further ascertain even further than he had previously ascertained — that this was merely a really big coincidence.

And there you have it, Dear Readers, a glimpse into the minds of our scientific community! Hopefully this will hold us over for awhile anyway!

Until next time . . . I love you

Ten Simple Steps to Making Scientific Salad Dressing

Hello Dear Readers and welcome to Fish if From the Archives Friday at the blog!  This is where I trot out old posts I’ve written and try to pass them off as new. Today the “Joes” are going to teach us how to make Scientific Salad Dressing.  Hope you’re up for a little lesson, Dear Readers!  And good news, because it’s Friday, there will not be a test!

Today Dear Readers, I have a special treat in store for you!

I managed to track down a group of elusive scientists and talk them into showing us how to make oil and vinegar salad dressing the scientific way:

First, let’s meet The Scientists:

“Hi! My name’s Joe.”

“Hi!  My name’s Joe too.”

“Hi!  My name’s Joe but people call me Joe!”

“Hi I’m Joe and I’m about as Joe as it gets.”

Let’s take a minute to give our Salad Dressing Scientists a round of applause!

And now . . .how to prepare Oil and Vinegar Salad Dressing the Scientific Way!

Step One:  Reconfigure your kitchen refrigerator so that the reciprocating compressors are working to maximum capacity.

Uh oh!  Watch your step there Joe!

Oh sure it sounds like a lot of work, but really all you have to do is climb up in your kitchen attic (every kitchen has one) and disassemble the compressor.  Vacuum the dehydration system and viola!  Accessible Hermetic Compressors!  Who knew it would be so simple!

Step Two: Stick an olive on the end of a lead pipe.

That’s right!  Just like that!

This will give “slow” Joe (the Joe that’s always getting in everybody’s way) something to do while the other Joe’s continue to prepare the scientific salad dressing.   (Slow Joe LOVES eating olives off lead pipes.)

Step Three:  Adjust the Atmospheric Pressure Valves according to the atmospheric Pressure, PSIA.

OK, this is kind of a pain, but really it’s simply a matter of finding your kitchen’s cellar (every kitchen has one) and going down there and adjusting the knobs until the calibration level is 11.336.847.11111.0000.1.2.2.f.3.4.

If Joe can do it so can you!  Oh and don’t forget to wear rubber gloves!

Step Four:  Take one large Baskin Robbins container, eat all the ice cream out of it, then fill with oil and pour onto the  Refrigeration Compressor

Do it this way like Joe is only don’t get it all over the place like Joe always does.  Joe’s whole house smells like an oily rag!

Step Five:  Stick another olive on a lead pipe and hand it to “slow” Joe as by now he has probably figured out how to put the last one into his mouth.

Poor guy is addicted to these things!

Step Six:  Go to Costco and buy two restaurant sized jars of pickles, eat all the pickles out of each and pour oil in one and vinegar in the other.  (Be sure to remove the finely divided carbon so as not to restrict oil flow, but that goes without saying, of course!)

Make sure the liquid in both containers is Even Steven.

Step Seven:  Pour a little out of both jars onto some lettuce making sure to strain out soluble or entrained metal salts and oxides.

This is a critical step in which everything could go horribly wrong due to low-side pressure in the evaporator — but as long as there is no drop in pressure in the suction line everything should taste pretty darned delicious!

Step Eight:  Have Head Honcho Joe give it a taste test!

Uh oh!  Head Honcho Joe isn’t pleased with the consistency and, unfortunately,  it’s far too late to do anything about that!

Step Nine:  Draw Head Honcho Joe a scientific diagram of just exactly what went wrong with the scientific salad dressing, scientifically.

This will explain everything.

Step Ten:  Offer Head Honcho Joe an olive on a lead pipe and keep feeding them to him until he ingests so much lead he can’t tell a Critical Property of Refrigerant from a Pressure-Temperature Refrigerant! HA!

Mmmmmm . . . .me really starting to likee these things says Head Honcho Joe!

And there you have it, Dear Reader.  How to make scientific salad dressing Ten Simple Steps!

Until next time . . . I love you

What are Zebra Fish Trying to Tell the Scientists?

Good news Dear Readers! Our hard working scientific researchers have done it again!

Well, well!  Thumbing through a copy  of Scientific American in an article entitled  Why Sleep is Good for You, it seems our industrious Scientist Community has been staying up late worrying about going to bed early.

In an unprecedented effort to dig up more work, Scientist’s have been studying the brain’s performance while sleeping and not sleeping by studying see-through fish.

Scientists Have Divided Themselves into Two Camps

The article goes on to say that the question of sleep has divided the Scientific Community into two camps:

• Scientific researchers who think sleep is good for you
• And scientific researchers who think sleep is even better for you than scientific researchers who think sleep is good for you.

Scientists Who Stare at Fish

According to the article, a “group” (probably less than 50 but more than 25) of scientific researchers have been staying up late staring at some zebra fish in the aquarium at the lab.

This is the kind of activity that just about any group can do without the need to pre-coordinate; thus making it quite popular among uncoordinated groups of scientific researchers.

An Uncoordinated Group of Scientific  Researchers

Let Sleeping Brains Lie

Basically, all the scientific researchers had to do was show up at the same time, pour themselves some coffee, and shuffle over to the fish tank to “look” at the fish.

In this case, they were shuffling over to “look” at zebra fish because “their larvae are transparent”, which allowed researchers to watch their tiny brains as they slept (the larvae, that is).

Putting the “zzzzzz” in Zebra Fish

For you see, it had been determined at an earlier date that zebra fish are less active at night than they are during the day which the scientific researchers ascertained could only mean one thing.  Zebra fish sleep at night.

After coming to this scientific conclusion, the scientific researchers could have simply gone right home and written about it in their Scientific Journals.

But the scientific researchers wanted to keep going because they just knew they were about to make a genuine Scientific Discovery — plus they could use the hours.

Talk About Dedicated!

So one camp of scientific researchers wrestled a zebra fish to the bottom of the tank while the other camp of scientific researchers held him down and dyed his neuron connections green and black. Ha!

They Could Be Dead, Sure, But Scientists Say They’re Sleeping

Well, wouldn’t you know, the scientific researchers soon found out that zebra fish’s synapse activity was lower during sleep. Who knew?

But how could the researchers tell that the zebra fish was, in fact, asleep?  Because first it started yawning, and then it closed its eyes for about eight hours give or take.

These eyes have been scientifically proven to be closed.

The upshot is that the hard work of the scientific researchers paid off when the results were published in the Journal, Neuron, which is a magazine about neurons that all the scientific researchers subscribe to, thus cementing their status as the very first Scientific Researchers to observe the effects of sleep/wake cycles on the synapses of a living vertebrate!

And if that little bit of scientific good news doesn’t put a spring in your step, nothing will.

Until next time. . . I love you

What the Scientists Are Thinking About

New Project Explores Risk of Robot Uprising

In an attempt to keep the staff looking busy at the University of Cambridge,  they have established the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk wherein they will be paying a philosopher, an astrophysicist and a software engineer to think about whether the human race is at risk from artificial intelligence and to determine if what happened in movies like The Matrix and The Terminator might someday come true for realsies.

Their first order of the day was to carefully craft a brilliant Catch 22 mission statement designed to keep them on the Cambridge payroll indefinitely:

The seriousness of these risks is difficult to assess, but that in itself seems a cause for concern, given how much is at stake.

Next, it was decided that the software engineer would be in charge of ordering all the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies from Netflix, the astrophysicist would supervise beer runs; while the philosopher would be in charge of waiting with his ear to the door for the pizza delivery guy, thus bypassing the age old question — if a pizza guy knocks on the door and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

“Shhh . . . was that sound knocking?”
“Sounded like a tree falling to me.”

Most Powerful Black Hole Blast Ever Discovered

Nahum Arav, an astronomer at Virginia Tech, along with his colleagues recently witnessed a blast five times more powerful than anything ever seen before. The blast has been found flowing from a black hole 11.3 billion light years away from earth.

The Scientific community at large is quick not to get their hopes up about the size of the blast, however, due to the fact that up til now the biggest blast Nahum Arav and his colleagues had ever witnessed was at last year’s Virginia Tech Fourth of July celebration when the faculty members got liquored up and set off some M-80 firecrackers in the gas tank of the Dean’s Prius.

“Ah nuts! There goes my gas mileage!”

The British Melt-less Chocolate Debacle

Hailed as the best invention of the last ten minutes, food scientists working at the Cadbury research plant in  Birmingham England have successfully developed a chocolate candy bar that will remain solid in the sun for at least three hours.

The chocolate will only be sold in India and Brazil and not UK, however,  as the sun never comes out in the UK for more than two hours, thus rendering  chocolate that won’t melt in the sun after three hours totally useless in Britain.

British Big Wig, Robert Halfon of the UK is quoted as saying, “It seems that we do all the innovating, then they give the best of British to people overseas.”

Cadbury food scientists are currently working on  developing a variety of grapes that won’t sour.

“Nope . . .still sour!”

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Until next time . . .I love you

Fish it from the Archives Friday: A Scientific Afternoon with Dr. Barbara Buh

Hello Dear Readers!  It’s Friday which means it’s time to fish out an old post, dust it off, change a few words here and there and trot it out again.  

A Scientific Afternoon with Dr. Barbara Buh

“What makes some of us smarter than others?  Or put another way, why am I smarter than you?”  Dr. Barbara Buh, Distinguished Professor of Kumquat Mechanics at the Salt and Pepper Institute in Fairbanks Alaska took me by surprise with this question while we were setting up our display table at the Compass, Watch and Egg Timer Scientific Summit in Uppenappen, Switzerland.

I momentarily stopped lining up the egg timers so that I could give her question some focused thought.

Before I had a chance to answer, Dr. Barbara Buh, also Director of the Gollygenome Project at Poly WannaCracker Tech in Nome, Alaska pulled her rhesus monkey, Pieces, from beneath her top hat and began asking it rapid-fire questions to prove her point.

“What is the square root of seven?”

“What is the formula for gum?”

“If a train is traveling at 60 mph and another train is traveling at 40 mph going the opposite direction, what time is it now?”

Pieces just sat there looking glum.  After four minutes and 13 seconds of silence, I suddenly realized that Dr. Buh, also Chief Board Adviser of Bioenginerding at the Goggles Institute in Anchorage, Alaska was directing these questions towards me and not her Rhesus, Pieces.

Dr. Barbara Buh contemplating Kumquat Mechanics.

I tried to nonchalantly keep winding watches but I could feel her piercing gaze penetrating me like tiny daggers or, failing that, very large needles.

“Am I allowed to google?” I finally asked and was instantly angry at myself for detecting a quiver of fear in my voice.

“If you must.” Dr. Buh, who was also Senior Research Analyst for Scientific Cookie Crumbling at the Ketchasketchcan Scientific Center in Kethican, Alaska, replied.

“In that case the answers are:

Minus 27

HC3–>2HOCI

And about a quarter past eight.”

But Dr. Buh didn’t respond. She was too busy performing the Heimlich Maneuver on Pieces who had managed to choke on one of the egg timers while I was googling.

Which seemed like as good a time as any to break for lunch.

“I don’t know about you, but I could really go for some egg timers.”

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Until next time . . . I love you

What the Scientists Are Thinking About

Can Insects Reach the Size of Humans?

Back in the day, (300,000 million years ago), insects were a lot bigger than they are now.  There were dragon flies the size of hawks with a 6-foot wingspan and ants the size of hummingbirds. Some scientists think that insects don’t get that big now because their exoskeletons wouldn’t be able to hold them up and every time you went to swat one (if you happened to have a boat oar handy) the act of actually moving would cause them to dissolve into a big puddle of unpleasantness.

An Australian Physicist Wonders How Musical Instruments Evolved

Australian Physicist, Neville Fletcher of the Australian National University in Canberra, has suggested the first musical instruments were developed as stimulus from the clamor of battle and were made from whatever materials happened to be handy.   The  Physicist didn’t have time to develop his theory further, however,  as his boss told him to quit staring out the window and get busy Physicist-ing.

Antarctic Sea Ice Hits Record High

Despite fears of Global Warming, the Antarctic sea ice record levels last month extended a total of  7.51 million square miles (the most ever recorded).  Scientists are quick to point out that growth in Antarctic sea ice does not disprove global warming because record levels of ice could be an indication that things are getting warmer not colder.  The scientists then went back inside their Antarctic research facilities and burned their tongues trying to drink  ice-cold chocolate milk.

Getting Paid to Look for a Big Mess of Solar Panels.

Penn State’s Jason Wright has begun a two-year search for Dyson Spheres in the Milky Way Galaxy under the assumption that perhaps an alien civilization has run out of energy and therefore has surrounded its sun with solar panels.  This hypothetical mega-structure was the brain child of Freeman Dyson who named it the  “Dyson Sphere” not to be confused with “Dyson Vacuum Cleaner”.

Despite sounding like the plot of a really boring science fiction movie, a team of astronomers have promised to start their two-year search for Dyson Spheres just as soon as they get back from shopping for Team Dyson T-shirts that don’t have a picture of vacuum cleaners on them. (It may take a while but hopefully not two years.)

* * *

Until next time . . . I love you

Penguin Picture Credit:  http://www.TwoPenguinsOneIceberg.com/archive/penguin-jokes-005/ 

A Visit from the Science Channel Lady!

Dear Readers! Wonderful news!  The Science Channel Lady has been kind enough to drop by the blog today and answer some questions  for us!  We couldn’t be more delighted!

The Science Channel Lady

Here’s our first question for you Science Channel Lady:

Ha!  Now this is a question that keeps me up at night!   Thinking about books and pencils and other things too like oxygen and hydrogen and carbon dioxide and how I attended  junior high school with Carl Sagan!

Which reminds me . . . did I mention yet that plutonium is an element that is heavier than uranium? Because it is you know!  I don’t care who you are.  You could be the President of the United States or you could be Betsy Sue Parker who went out with Carl Sagan in junior high school for about three days!  Ha!

Obviously Carl didn’t have any idea that Betsy Sue Parker didn’t know plutonium was heavier than uranium like I did — or he would have never EVER asked her to the Valentine’s Day dance. He would have asked me. That’s who he would have asked.  He would have asked MEEEEEEEEE!

Okie Doke!  Let’s move onto the next question quickly.

Hmmm. . . well all I know is that when I went to junior high school with Carl Sagan, I remember that Carl went out with both of them at the same time for about two whole weeks!

And you know how they say two heads are better than one?  Well not in their case.  I know for a fact that neither one of them knew that Alcaligenes paradoxus was on the list of approved bacterium.  They thought it was on the list of bacterium waiting to be approved. Can you imagine?

I can’t think what Carl Sagan saw in those two air heads or why he let them take him to the Sadie Hawkins dance when he should have gone with me. MEEEEEE!

Okie Doke.  Fortunately we only have time for one more question Science Channel Lady.

Hmmm . . . that depends.  Let me use an example from when I attended junior high school with Carl Sagan.  You see, Carl liked a lot of girls who I would have to categorize as dogs– intellectually speaking, of course!  For instance, he once liked a girl who failed to start every sentence with “according to the laws of physics”  like I did! (What a woof!)

And frankly, just between you and me and the Unified Field Theory, Carl was a great big chicken.  Otherwise he would have had the courage to go out with me.  MEEEEEEEE!

Okay!  That’s all the question we have time for today Science Channel Lady.  Thank you for coming by.

Okay. But did I mention that Carl Sagan went to junior school with me.  MEEEE!

Yeah we got that.

Okay.

Until next time . . . I love you

Again With The Science Shenanigans!

Hello Dear Readers!  As you may have noticed, we like to keep our fingers on the cutting edge of science here at the blog which sometimes results in needing a band-aid (luckily we always keep a first-aid kit handy). Today we are cobbling together both Science fact and Science fiction to come up with a very special scientific category called:

Science Shenanigans!

IS there a savant inside all of us?

 

Some people are born with an innate talent in music, mathematics or art and dedicate their lives to developing that talent.

Then there’s Tony Cicoria.  It seems Tony had little interest in classical music until he was struck by lightning one day while talking to his wife in a phone booth — causing him to develop an obsession with the piano, and soon afterwards, became a master pianist –but also causing him to forget to pick up a quart of milk which was the whole reason for the call in the first place.

A team of savant experts cannot agree on which is more amazing.  The fact that Tony’s innate musical talents were activated by lightning or the fact that Tony managed to find the only phone booth left in existence.

Mammoth Carcass Found in Siberia

In an ironic twist of fate, a well-preserved mammoth carcass has been found by an eleven-year-old boy while walking his dog in the permafrost in northern Siberia — which is particularly mystifying since it is reported that this same eleven-year-old boy has never even been able to find his homework up til now.

A team of expert Mammoth Defrosters lead by Sergei Gorbunov from the International Mammoth Committee — whose full-time job it is to sit around and wait for eleven-year-old boys walking their dogs in Siberia to phone in with another mammoth discovery — were dispatched to the site.

Gorbunov tells us, “To thaw a thin layer of permafrost, we had to use both traditional instruments such as axes, picks and shovels as well as such devices as a “mammoth steamer” (or hair dryer as it is known in the United States but please don’t mention this to Mr. Gorbunov as Russia has enough to feel bad about as it is).

Not only did Gorbunov and his team find a well-preserved body of a 16-year-0ld mammoth — but also, they discovered 16 pages of unfinished homework thought to be that of an eleven-year-old boy.

Scientists Develop see-through Soil

In an effort to see through soil, scientists have developed soil that can be seen through.  Using small pellets of synthetic material called Nafion and mixing it with a mysterious see-through solution (probably water), scientists were able to mix up a big huge bowl of invisible soil.

“There are so many things to discover in soil and we don’t know yet what they are,” commented Theoretical Biologist Lionel Dupuy who, along with inventing invisible soil, also prides himself on stating the obvious.

Theoretical Biologist Dupuy would have liked to  elaborate on how he will attempt to discover new things about soil that he cannot see; but the cleaners was closing in five minutes, and he had promised to pick up the emperor’s new clothes.

But that’s another scientific story for another scientific day!

Until next time . . . I love you

 

“Hey look! It’s invisible soil!”
“Where?”

More Science Shenanigans!

Hello Dear Readers!  Well I took a day off yesterday in which to dillydally all day.  So now it’s time to put my nose to the grindstone to get back to the serious business of making stuff up!

Join me won’t you, as we cobble together both Science fact and Science fiction to come up with a very special scientific sub-genre which I like to call Science Shenanigans!

Do You Suffer From Hindsight Bias?

Those who “knew the answer all along” may not be quite as clever as they are making themselves out to be,” say Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago. After studying this “thinking you know something when you don’t” phenomenon, they  have come to the conclusion that people too often feel they knew something all along, but actually didn’t — they just thought they did.  Researchers call this phenomenon: Hindsight Bias.

However, a  group of highly respected women researchers who have also studied this phenomenon have come up with what they feel is a more appropriate term for Hindsight Bias:  Men.

Hyenas Are As Bright As Primates and They Have A Much Better Sense of Humor

Researchers have discovered that Hyenas are adept at solving problems and can even “count”.  Scientists now believe that the animals may have intelligence levels that match some primates.

After spending an inordinate amount of  time studying the expressions on the faces of hyenas, scientists have concluded that hyenas can assess the size of a competing pack of hyenas by “listening” to their “calls” to ascertain if the rival hyena pack out number them — as well as determine whether or not  the jokes the rival pack of hyenas were laughing at were actually funny.

Scientists also observed that hyenas solved problems through trial and error. When the hyenas were confronted with a box of food, the hyenas tried to get it out trying different methods until they were successful — causing scientists to be even more impressed with the  intelligence of the hyena.  The scientists were quick to point out,  however,  that scientists are still smarter than hyenas.

It is also safe to assume that none of the scientists has ever owned a pet.

Scientists Determine  Dinosaurs that lived 120 Million Years Ago Ate Stuff

Paleontologists from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences  have determined that dinosaurs actually did eat stuff!  The team found the remains of a yummy fossilized dinner of fish, lizards and the several small mammals as well as a feathered, flying dinosaur (probably low flying) in the bellies of two fossilized dinosaurs.

“We here at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences would consider the contents of these two fossilized bellies the basic ingredients for a wonderful modern-day Chinese dinner,” one of the Chinese Paleontologists was not quoted as saying.

The fossil findings caused  Phil Bell, a vertebrae paleontologist at the Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Initiative in Canada to officially wake up and state:

“Stomach remains are evidence of actual interactions between animals, which is extremely rare in the fossil record.”

“In fact, there hasn’t been this much fossil interaction since the birthday party of the oldest woman in the world, 116-year-old Besse Cooper of  Monroe, Georgia,”  Phil Bell would have also been quoted as saying had he thought of it at the time.

But that’s another scientific story for another scientific day.

Until next time . . . I love you

The Story of You and Your Sediment

As you may or may not remember (depending on the severity of your last concussion) earlier this week, my brain, Peanuts, wrote a well thought out and balanced essay weighing in on the pros and cons of death.  If you missed it,  Peanuts is happy to summarize it for you as follows:

The pros and cons of death are that death sucks and there aren’t any pros. 

So today, in keeping with our “death theme”, my brain, Peanuts would like to take a few minutes of your time (or a few hours depending on how fast you read since the concussion) to discuss how growing older changes the actual “sediment” in your aging body.

 Time out for Science

But first, let’s step back a little and explain what my brain, Peanuts, means by a “sediment” in scientific terms.  Wait a minute . . . what’s that Peanuts?  Oh, sorry, Dear Reader, Peanuts doesn’t want to do that.  Ok, fine.

The Unscientific Explanation of Sediment

When you are born, your body is like a pristine glass of water with nothing in it but a teeny-weeny bit of cute, adorable sediment.

“Congratulations! It’s a glass of water!”

Another name for sediment is star stuff  which is what we are all actually made of (as the Science Channel just loves to tell us).  And since the universe has to store all this star stuff somewhere, it stores it in our bodies as sediment.

So because we are made of star stuff, naturally our newborn vessels are going to have a little bit of sediment in them.  But just a scosche . . . I’m holding up my index finger and thumb right now for emphasis — and if you could just see how close together they were, you’d say “oh Pshaw! Who cares?”

Now Let’s Fast Forward to Age 60.

OK, by now the average body has collected so much sediment, that if you were to look closely at your eyes, you’d be able to detect a very faint line about half way up your eyeball that is your Sediment Indicator Light.

At 60, your  Sediment Indicator will read “full”.  This means you are now completely full of it, when it comes to sediment and/or star stuff.

“Yup, I’m full of it alright!”

 Which means that even if you were to miraculously get down to what you weighed in high school, none of your jeans would fit like they used to– which means you wouldn’t look your hip in those new jeans, you would simply look like a scrawny 60-year-old lady or man who robbed some jeans from their granddaughter’s or grandson’s closet.  And there is absolutely nothing either you or the Science Channel can do about it.

And that, Dear Reader, is the bitter pill that needs to be swallowed on a regular basis from here on out!
Until next time  . . . .I love you anyway

P.S.  If you have any problems with any of the above, please take it up with the Science Channel.