There's clearly a bird in this image, but can you see the hidden man as well?
Also: 
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Experts' memory boosters
The first time you meet someone, use the person's name right away to help retain it.
Also: Yes, Music Does Get You High
What music listeners have known for centuries has been vindicated by science: music gets you high. Specifically, when we listen to music we like, our brains release dopamine. Dopamine is released even when anticipating listening to a song.
Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick is one.
You can find the study here.
Plants You Can't Kill
Wanna Bet?
Like my other crochet projects, Plants You Can’t Kill are attractive on the surface while also speaking to our human insecurities. These pretty little cacti, aloe plants, flowering pots, ferns and other botanicals look darling on the windowsill but are particularly resonant with those of us who can’t keep the real thing alive.
After dozens of failed attempts at indoor gardening, I just decided to crochet plants my own damn self.
How do you like them avocados?
Plucky Daisy Outgrows the Endangered Species List
Photo credit: US Fish & Wildlife Service
Just before the tiny Maguire daisy, native to the desert Southwest of the United States, was placed on the endangered species list in 1985, a survey estimated that the population had dropped to just seven plants. Extinction, it seemed, was inevitable.Thanks to continued conservation efforts, the situation today is looking much better—making the daisy one of the greatest conservation successes of the last 25 years.
Article continues: Plucky Daisy Outgrows the Endangered Species List
Slime Mold Packs Own Bacteria Lunch to Colonize New Areas
The amoeba species Dictyostelium discoideum slime mold (or dicty, as scientists lovingly call it) is one fascinating organism. For instance, its life cycle involves unicellular amoeba, then a multicellular slug that scoots around to find food, then a "fruiting body" to disperse spores to new growing areas.Scientists have just discovered that the slime mold is even cannier than previously thought: it can also "farm."
Research described in Nature shows that a third of these spores contain some of the bacteria to grow at the new site.
Food management has been seen in animals including ants and snails, but never in creatures as simple as these.
The behaviour falls short of the kind of "farming" that more advanced animals do; ants, for example, nurture a single fungus species that no longer exists in the wild.
But the idea that an amoeba that spends much of its life as a single-celled organism could hold short of consuming a food supply before decamping is an astonishing one.
More than just a snack for the journey of dispersal, the idea is that the bacteria that travel with the spores can "seed" a new bacterial colony, and thus a food source in case the new locale should be lacking in bacteria.
Study IDs 9,400-year-old mutt
Nearly 10,000 years ago, man's best friend provided protection and companionship - and an occasional meal.
Blacklights help spot preserved dinosaur feathers
Helmut Tischlinger is the man shaping what your children will think dinosaurs looked like. Most of you probably know that the illustrations of dinosaurs we grew up with were created through a process that includes as much speculation as science. Fossils, obviously, couldn't tell us what color T. Rex was, or whether the skin of a velociraptor felt like a lizard's—as is popularly portrayed. Tischlinger is at the forefront of efforts to improve our understanding of what dinosaurs looked like on the outside—and inside—using UV light to pick out the ephemeral remains of soft tissues. His photos—created using hand-made lens filters—are regarded as some of the best work out there.
This technique is a big part of why scientists now draw creatures like the microraptor with feathers, instead of leathery skin or scales. That's one of Tischlinger's photos of a microraptor fossil at the top of this page. The gray arrows point to feathers that show up under a blacklight.
The Discovery Channel has a new, short video that really shows off the massive difference between what the human eye can see by looking at fossil under natural light, compared to what is visible when you turn on the UV. It's a little mind-blowing.
There's lots being written about this technique, and Helmut Tischlinger, especially early in 2010, when he published a paper on that microraptor. A couple of things you might want to check out:
• Helmut Tischlinger: The King of UV—on the blog Archosaur Musings, written by palaeontologist Dave Hone.
• The 2010 peer-reviewed article in PLoS One, written by Hone and Tischlinger, that details the microraptor fossil. The photo came from this paper. You can read the whole thing for free.
• Smithsonian story about that peer-reviewed paper, and why it's important.
• A 2009 peer-reviewed paper (also free to read) on the UV analysis of soft tissue in a pterosaur species
• Hell Bent for Feathers—Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs post that includes several more great links.
Butterflies with some unusual monikers
Foolish Swift, Lost-Egg Skipper, Morose Sailor, Dive-bomber, Blue Heart Playboy, Drop with Glasses, Sad Green Hairstreak, Garden Inspector, Question Mark, Poodle-face Sulphur, Zigzag Sleepy-head, Mediocre Skipper, Snow-flake, Shower of Gold, Noble Night-fighter, Noseburn Wanderer, One Pip Policeman, Queen of the Night, Wandering Donkey.
Selections from a list found at Learn About Butterflies, where you can view photographs and read about life cycles for many hundreds of species worldwide.
Pictured above is the "Snowflake" from the Amazon rainforest -
Snowflakes are invariably encountered singly, usually when seen in flight at light gaps in the forest, where trees have fallen and sunlight penetrates to ground level. These tiny butterflies have a very slow and very persistent fluttering flight, flying for long periods but apparently going nowhere ! It is in fact possible to watch one of these delightful butterflies drifting and wafting about, but without travelling more than a few metres, for several minutes before it eventually settles.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Daily Drift
The Daily Drift
Today's horoscope says:The more unusual it is, the more you'll absolutely have to call it your own.
That goes particularly for objects, but also for people who happen to be displaying qualities you're fond of.
Before you get too involved, be sure you're both available.
Kindred spirits are great to have around, but if you're after a long-term relationship, both of you being single sure would be a better way to start.
Some of our readers today have been in:
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Paris, Ile-De-France, France
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Stockholm, Stokholms Lan, Sweden
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Halifax, England, United Kingdom
Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar
Vienna, Wien, Austria
Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
London, England, United Kingdom
Bilbao, Pais Vasco, Spain
Birmingham, England, United Kingdom
Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Annecy, Rhone-Alpes, France
Stafford, England, United Kingdom
Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Ahrensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Paris, Ile-De-France, France
Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Stockholm, Stokholms Lan, Sweden
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Halifax, England, United Kingdom
Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar
Vienna, Wien, Austria
Basel, Basel-Stadt, Switzerland
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
London, England, United Kingdom
Bilbao, Pais Vasco, Spain
Birmingham, England, United Kingdom
Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Annecy, Rhone-Alpes, France
Stafford, England, United Kingdom
Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Ahrensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
as well as Malta, Bulgaria, Israel, Finland, Austria, Norway, Georgia, Mexico, Peru, Kuwait, Serbia, Bangladesh, Latvia, Greece, Scotland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Wales, Iran, Singapore, Poland, Taiwan, Sweden, Afghanistan, Belgium, Tibet, Croatia, Pakistan, Romania, Paraguay, Sudan, Vietnam, Argentina, Cambodia, Egypt, France, Estonia, Puerto Rico, Maldives, Qatar, Brazil, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Slovenia, China, Iraq, Ecuador, Nigeria, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Paupa New Guinea, Moldova, Venezuela, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Czech Republic, Vietnam, Norway, Finland and in cities across the United States such as Odessa, Sparta, Canton, Omaha and more.
Today is:
Today is Wednesday, January 19, the 19th day of 2011.
There are 346 days left in the year.
Today's unusual holiday or celebration is:
Tin Can Day.
Don't forget to visit our sister blog!
Apologies aren’t as good as people imagine they’ll be
We all want an apology when someone does us wrong.
But a new study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people aren’t very good at predicting how much they’ll value an apology.
But a new study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people aren’t very good at predicting how much they’ll value an apology.
Major 7.2 quake strikes southwestern Pakistan
A major 7.2 magnitude earthquake rocked a remote area of southwestern Pakistan early Wednesday, shaking many parts of the country and causing widespread panic, said meteorologists.
U.S. Sued for $25Million for Killing Mexican Teen at Border
The parents of Mexican teen Sergio Hernandez Guereca are suing the U.S. government for the death of their 15-year-old son at the hands of U.S. Border patrol agents last June.Pirate attacks at all-time high
Attacks increased in violence and occurred over an "unprecedented" range, a report says.
Also: New repugican governor starts term with executive order eliminating transparency
If there's one thing the public has been screaming for, it's less transparency.
What progress!
What progress!
Republican Gov. Bill Haslam has signed an executive order that eliminates a requirement for the governor and top aides to disclose how much they earn.Then again, Tennessee is the state where Teabaggers have presented a plan to remove history about the "minority experience" and to exclude "made up criticism" about slavery and native Americans. There's progress for you!
Under the order signed after Haslam took office on Saturday, the disclosure rules applying to himself and senior administration officials will be the same as those for members of the General Assembly. Those only requires them to list sources of income, but not how much they make.
The move wipes off the books former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen’s first executive order of 2003, which required the top executive branch officials to make annual reports about their total earnings.
The tea party governor of South Carolina approves massive pay raises for staff
Remember, the tea party and the repugicans are all about being fiscally conservative.
Who hasn't rolled out double digit pay increases during a recession and when your state has a budget deficit?
Who hasn't rolled out double digit pay increases during a recession and when your state has a budget deficit?
Haley started things off by giving her new chief of staff, Tim Pearson, a 27.5 percent pay raise. Pearson will make $125,000 a year – or $27,000 more than Scott English made while serving as chief of staff to former Gov. Mark Sanford.
Pearson will also have a full-time assistant who makes $60,000 a year.
Haley’s deputy chief of staff for communications and legislative affairs – Trey Walker – will be paid $122,775 a year. That’s a 42.3 percent increase over the second-highest paid staffer in the Sanford administration.
Haley’s top lawyer, Swati Patel, will be paid $102,000 a year – which is a 36 percent increase over the $75,000 a year that Sanford paid his top lawyer.
But, oh, no there's no wingnut violence
Police disarmed a pipe bomb found at the mlk day parade route in Spokane:
A suspicious backpack left along a Martin Luther King day parade route in Spokane, Washington, held a radio-controlled pipe bomb that could have sprayed shrapnel at marchers in the parade.
Three parade workers spotted a backpack with visible wires on a bench at North Washington Street and West Main Avenue in downtown Spokane about 30 minutes before the parade was scheduled to begin Monday. authorities rerouted the parade while officers from the Spokane Police Department's bomb disposal unit worked on the bomb.
FBI special agent Frank Harrill, the supervisory senior resident agent in Spokane, told ABC news that the backpack was "a viable device."
Three parade workers spotted a backpack with visible wires on a bench at North Washington Street and West Main Avenue in downtown Spokane about 30 minutes before the parade was scheduled to begin Monday. authorities rerouted the parade while officers from the Spokane Police Department's bomb disposal unit worked on the bomb.
FBI special agent Frank Harrill, the supervisory senior resident agent in Spokane, told ABC news that the backpack was "a viable device."
Police recreate Jo's final steps
The final steps of murdered Joanna Yeates have been reconstructed in an attempt to jog memories and catch her killer.High-crime city slashes police
Locals warn the "fear quotient has been raised" as budget crisis takes a grim toll.
Also: Bad Cops
San Francisco cops partner with reality show to craft elaborate entrapment scam
New Jersey police officer admits obstructing probe
Curiously un-named Washington deputy arrested in assault case
Utah cop arrested for stealing city funds
Florida cop pleads guilty to on-duty pot purchase in squad car
Ohio cop accused of Oxycodone trafficking
On The Job
People use phrases like "move the needle" to sound smart and important, but it can backfire.
Also: 
New at an airline near you
The days of infants on laps flying free and overstuffed carry-ons will end this year, experts say.
Also: 
The next generation of aircraft are designed to fly at up to 85 percent of the speed of sound.
Also: Do Celebrity Endorsements and Ads Work?
There’s a lot of ads featuring celebrity endorsers and undoubtedly these celebs are paid a lot of money (I’m looking at you, Lance Armstrong), so those ads must work, right? Wrong! According to Peter Daboll of AdvertisingAge, having celebrity endorsements do not pay:
Over the course of last year, time and time again we observed incredibly low effectiveness scores of TV ads starring celebrities. From Tiger Woods to Donald Trump, we found that with rare exception, celebrity endorsements were largely ineffective and failed to yield the benefits popular wisdom promises.Why? Peter blames the changing consumers, though I suspect that the ad makers relied so heavily on the star power of the celebrity that they either neglect to actually make good ads or no longer have enough funds to do so:
Were celebrities losing their pizazz in influencing consumers? Had the age of social media and consumer control ushered in a new consumer that is not as easily won over by a famous face?
In fact, yes. Today’s consumer is a totally different animal than the consumer of even five years ago, meaning that what was effective and influential five years ago is not necessarily so today, as today’s consumer is more likely to be influenced by someone in their social network than a weak celebrity connection. Today’s consumer is informed, time-compressed, and difficult to impress, and they are only influenced by ads that are relevant and provide information. They don’t want to have products pushed at them, even from a celebrity. In fact, the data show that relevance and information attributes were key missing ingredients from most celebrity ads.
What not to buy at Whole Foods
The upscale grocer may be too pricey for many, but it’s possible to find deals.
Also: Don't beg for an antibiotic
Leaving your physician's office empty-handed might be better for you in the long run.
Also: 
College students learning little
A bleak study finds that nearly half of U.S. undergrads learn disturbingly little.
Also: Ten 80s Movies that Will Remind You of Your Geek Roots
Looking at this list, I realize that the seeds that spawned the cult of the geek were indeed planted in the movies of the ’80s, as opposed to the rise of the internet in the ’90s.For those of you who grew up at least in part in the eighties, you know that it wasn’t all about Molly Ringwald and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Though not all cinematic masterpieces, there were a lot of really fun movies that glorified the geeks of the day. Here are a few you could pick up for nostalgia’s sake – or especially if you missed the eighties, make sure you’ve seen these if you haven’t!It’s all there -science, space, robotics, computers, and of course, socially awkward teenagers.
The Cure for Pre-Test Anxiety
Just Write About It!
Got pre-test jitters? The solution to clearing a panicky student’s mind before taking a test is actually quite easy: just have them write about it:Students who were prone to test anxiety improved their test scores by nearly one grade point after they were given 10 minutes to write about what was causing them fear, the researchers found.
The exercise likely gave tense students an outlet for their anxieties before the test, and as such, freed up brainpower that had been tied up with worrying, explained the study’s senior author Sian Beilock, an associate professor in psychology at the University of Chicago.
Mom unplugs teens for 6 months
Susan Maushart lived out every parent's fantasy: She unplugged her teenagers.
For six months, she took away the Internet, TV, iPods, cell phones and video games.
Cathedral made of trash
Sort of appropriate don't you think, considering religion is trash anyway
The structure is modeled after St. Peter's Cathedral and has been under construction for decades.
Also: 
Shrinking snow and ice cover intensify global warming
The decreases in Earth’s snow and ice cover over the past 30 years have exacerbated global warming more than models predict they should have, on average, new research from the University of Michigan shows.
North Brother Island
How can an island in the East River in New York City be forgotten? Ah, because it’s a protected nesting area, and therefore off-limits to the public. Still, this particular island has quite a history.Of all the forgotten and mysterious places in the Five Boroughs of New York City, few have histories as rich and interesting as that of North Brother Island. Situated in the Hell Gate, a particularly treacherous stretch of the East River, North Brother was home to the quarantine hospital that housed Typhoid Mary, was the final destination of the General Slocum during its tragic final voyage, and was the site of an experimental drug treatment program which failed due to corruption. Riverside Hospital, the name of the facility on the island throughout its various incarnations, treated everything from smallpox and leprosy to venereal disease and heroin addiction; after the Second World War, it housed soldiers who were studying under the GI bill. The entirety of the island has been abandoned since 1963; over a dozen buildings remain, in various states of disrepair.The Kingston Lounge not only has more on the history of the island, but lots of pictures of the buildings in their process of decay.
Elakala Waterfalls, West Virginia
Nice use of a small aperture/long exposure to transform the motion of the little whirlpool.
This photo was one of three "Pictures of the Year" in Wikipedia Commons for 2009.
The other two photos (and winners in previous years) can be seen here.
Whales Burp Plastic in the Great Lakes
Photo by Chris J. Benson, provided by Minnesota Sea Grant
Just what the Great Lakes needs, more aquatic invasives. We're worrying about Asian carp and now we have whales? Whales in the Great Lakes, on Lake Superior? Well, "whale burps" have been found on the shore of Lake Superior. But they're also called surf balls, and are little bundles of fibrous material produced by winter winds. They're kind of beautiful in their own way. Article continues: Whales Burp Plastic in the Great Lakes
Time Travel Through Quantum Entanglement
If you think you’ve got a firm grasp on reality, obviously you’re not a quantum physicist. Recently, a new study by physicists in Australia revealed that quantum entanglement – a puzzling quantum physics phenomenon that Einstein himself called "spooky action at a distance" – also exists in respect to time.
I’ll skip the technical explanation (not that I understand it anyhow), but the study posits an interesting idea:
… Olson and Ralph’s teleportation provides a shortcut into the future. What they’re saying is that it’s possible to travel into the future without being present during the time in between.
That’s a fascinating scenario that immediately raises many questions. One of the first that springs to mind is what advantage might we get from this process. Might it be possible, for example, to make short-lived particles live longer by teleporting them into the future?
Caligula Statue Hints at Lavish Villa
- Thought to be worth about $1.6 million, the statue features Caligula sitting on the throne as the god Jupiter.
What Did Iron-Age Beer Taste Like?
- Barley grains are providing savory insights into this ancient Celtic malt beverage.
World's Oldest Heidsieck Champagne Found in Shipwreck
A third brand has been discovered in a cache of 200-year-old bottles of champagne.
Pterosaurs 10 Times Heavier than Biggest Birds
- These dinosaur-era reptiles weighed up to 320 pounds, new calculations from footprints show. Read more
How dinosaurs arose
Ask your kid what happened to the dinosaurs, and he or she will likely tell you that an asteroid killed them all. But ask how dinosaurs rose to prominence and you’ll likely get a blank stare. Even many paleontologists may have little to say about th…
Rare salamanders hatch at aquarium
Expensive Fishing Trip
Two avid fishermen go on a fishing trip. They rent all the equipment: the reels, the rods, the wading suits, the rowboat, the car, and even a cabin in the woods. They spend a fortune.The first day they go fishing, but they don't catch anything. The same thing happens on the second day, and on the third day. It goes on like this until finally, on the last day of their vacation, one of the men catches a fish.
As they're driving home they're really depressed. One guy turns to the other and says, "Do you realize that this one lousy fish we caught cost us fifteen hundred dollars?"
The other guy says, "Wow! It's a good thing we didn't catch any more!"
Calcarifera ordinata
Wattle Cup Caterpillar
This amazing-looking creature is the larval form of a rather unremarkable brown Cup moth, but as a caterpillar it is highly toxic.
It lives, with all the other toxic, poisonous, and venomous creatures, in Australia.
Stinky guest on 'Letterman'
Web searches on the skunk-like zorilla surge after its appearance on the show.
Also: Chihuahua survives owl attack in suburban Chicago
An owl attack has left a 4-pound Chihuahua with a healthy fear of the dark.
The attack happened when Chico the Chihuahua was out for a walk with his owner George Kalomiris in the Chicago suburb of Crystal Lake last week.
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