Animal Algorithms

Awesome experiment reported at nationalgeographic.com:

How do ants return home in a straight line, even after improvising random, twisty routes to find food? To find out, scientists attached tiny stilts to some insects and half-amputated others.

Yep, a lucky few got stilts glued their 'feet' while the less fortunate ants got all of their legs amputated and were forced to walk home on their bleeding exoskeletal stumps.

For the ants on stilts, each step now covered more distance than they were used to. They overshot the nest, running an average of more than 50 percent farther than they should have. Those with shortened legs undershot by nearly as much.

The result that totally blew my mind was this:

Interestingly, the ants quickly adjusted to their new leg lengths. After the initial experiment, the ants were promptly returned to their nest. The next day the modified ants were allowed to engage in normal foraging, and they returned to the nest as well as the "normal" ants.

So ants are basically integrating their current distance from the nest as they explore, tracking their orientation and counting on their internal pedometers. Amazing stuff.

That tiny bundle of neurons inside the head of each ant can totally beat anything we can do with computers, so it's cool to see what kind of 'algorithms' have evolved in animal brains. Reminds me of a talk I saw about this paper where they studied how praying mantises judge the distance to their prey. A mantis will bob its head left and right in order to gauge the exact distance to leap forward at the target (based on the degree of the target's lateral movement in their field of vision). According to the authors, pigeons actually bob their heads forward and back for the same reason. Neato!

Negative Results

A friend and I were just talking in the lab about the fact that negative don't get published. I've already been bitten by this a couple of times, and I'm also guilty of it a couple of times. He mentioned the science commons projects underway which will maybe have an effect, someday. Then I came across this CBC column that mentions a Journal of Negative Results for both Biomedicine and Ecology/Biology. The article goes on to suggest that Canada actively push for publication of negative results, since no one else seems interested:

[W]hat would be a better specialization niche for a place where the expression of national self-definition is as "cautious as a Canadian", than for us to become the world's centre of null hypothesis journals. It would be relatively cheap to do and think how natural and proud it would feel telling your children and your grandchildren: Because of Canada, this is what humanity now knows doesn't work.

I Crush Your Head!!

"I crush your head. I crush your head. You're a flathead!"
I miss Kids in the Hall.

Alternate caption: "Well, uuh yuhsee now, it gets about this size."

Pixels I Like

Stats Attack 2

Stuff I liked from numeric life recently:

• Women's brains respond 20% faster to erotic images than to other images.
• Women buy 68% of all books. Wow, girl power.
• 70% of the time, women correctly predict whether a man likes children just by looking at his face.
• 59% of brides-to-be expect to have sex on their wedding night; 28% plan to just sleep; 16% plan to get pregnant.
• Romantic love lasts an average of 12-18 months.
• 48% of an individual's propensity to become self-employed is genetic.
• In 2005, credit card companies spent $6 billion on advertising. The average American receives 6 unsolicited credit card offers per month.
• 9.3% of Americans have diabetes which makes them 42% more likely to have diabetes than Canadians.
• 56% of women would rather be thinner than smarter.
• 3 is the optimal group size for problem-solving.
• Kids in the U.S. spend 2 hours per day watching TV.
• 80% of women report foot pain, and 74% of those women wear high heals.
• The average conversation contains 0.3 inaccurate statements per minute. Men fib to make themselves look better, women fib to make others feel better.
• Since September 2005 the U.S. national debt has increased an average of $2.44 billion per day.

Eyeball + Scalpel = Cure for Whatever

Found interesting photographs of a guy who went to see John of God, the Brazilian faith healer with magical powers. The particular `surgery' that this guy underwent (before, during and after) was the eyeball-scraping one, although John of God has developed lots of other sensible procedures like shoving forceps up your nose and psychic surgery. I don't know what this guy was trying to get cured of, but from his comments it looks like Eczema.

Every Sickness

Saw this place across the street and had to take a snapshot. Click to see the rest of this divine storefront of the Holy Spirit. This kind of garbage is when it stops being fun and games. If they were just healing stuff like minor arthritis and depression then, hey, as long as they don't charge money, chalk it up to placebo and no harm done. But cancer and diabetes are dangerous things to pretend to heal. There should be some kind of law forcing places like this to make sure their `healees' have gone to see a real doctor as well.

Hmm, I never thought of this before, but do insecure boys/men pray to God for a bigger ... doodle? AAAHahaha, I just googled "penis enlargement prayer" and came up with this site by a self-described penis enlargement expert:

Making a Spiritual Connection to your Penis Enlargement.

This is another area of growth that I find very important. After having the best exercise routine I can possibly have I thank GOD. GOD is my higher power, use your own. Thanking a power greater than yourself will keep you humble and thankful for all you are gaining. It is very easy for a man to become egotistical and un-humble, but putting your trust and appreciation in a higher power really helps to keep me humble. I never pray for gains, I only thank God for the gains I get.

I hope Google doesn't use my "penis enlargement prayer" search for evil.

My Money's on the Grey Goo

Most probable doomsday scenario is either grey goo or green goo. I love Wikipedia. Remember, the singularity is near. It's not nearly as romantic an armageddon as what fundamentalist Christians have in mind.

PS: Gattaca is one of my most favourite movies ever.

The Art of Retouching

In the lab today I ended up showing a couple more people Glenn Feron's web site (subtitled the art of retouching). I wish I could post my favourite before/after images here but I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate that. Check out the Serena Williams one (and corresponding cover for Black Men magazine).

I think the material on that site would be excellent, just excellent, for a high school class about the media and how it can affect self image; I remember a lot more about my grade 10 class on subliminal messages than my class on Animal Farm. I wish high school taught us how to have more media savvy.