The Dark Side of the Fibonacci Sequence

post from Science and Language on 16 March 2012 09:06:39 PM. © Science and Language

This is the defining equation for the Fibonacci sequence: F[n] = F[n-1] + F[n-2] (See A, B, C, D, E, F, G.) 1.000000000 -0.6180339887498949 0.3819660112501051 ( 1.000 + -0.618… = 0.381… ) -0.2360679774997898 [...]

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NCBI ROFL: Nifty ways to leave your lover: The
tactics people use to entice and disguise the process of human mate poaching.

post from Discoblog » NCBI ROFL on 16 March 2012 07:00:09 PM. © Discoblog » NCBI ROFL

“Although a number of studies have explored the ways that men and women romantically attract mates, almost no research exists on the special tactics people use when already in a relationship and trying to attract someone new–a process known as mate poaching enticement. In Study 1, the authors investigated the tactics people use to entice others into making mate poaching attempts. Enticement tactic effectiveness conformed to evolutionary-predicted patterns across sex and temporal context. In Study 2, the authors examined the tactics men and women use to disguise mate poaching enticement. The most effective camouflage for poaching also varied between sex in evolutionary-predicted ways, regardless of the target of deception (i.e., current partner vs. larger community). Discussion focuses on limitations of this research, future investigative directions, unexpected findings, and the utility of placing mate poaching attraction within the broader context of human sexual strategies.”

Bonus table from the full text:

Photo: flickr/denharsh

Related content:
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Study proves cheating ...

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Visiting a Solar Sail in the OC

post from Planetary Society Weblog on 16 March 2012 06:33:00 PM. © Planetary Society Weblog

By Mat Kaplan The city of Tustin is about an hour's drive from Planetary Society HQ in Pasadena. That's when the freeway gods are kind, which they never are. The trip I made there yesterday was well worth the trouble. I parked next to the industrial park offices of L'Garde, Inc and walked into a plain vanilla reception area, the kind you've probably visited a hundred times, if you don't work behind one. The plain vanilla soon turned to ....

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Europe hopes to save Mars mission

post from Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News on 16 March 2012 06:15:51 PM. © Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

Paris (UPI) Mar 15, 2012
Member state delegations to the European Space Agency said Thursday the agency will press ahead with its 2016 and 2018 Mars missions despite funding problems. Delegates voiced their support for the plans to send a satellite and rover to the Red Planet during a council meeting in Paris Thursday, the BBC reported. The ExoMars project, approved in 2005, has been in limbo since the U

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Neutrinos Seen to Travel Merely at C

post from Physics Buzz on 16 March 2012 06:15:47 PM. © Physics Buzz

The ICARUS experiment has measured neutrinos moving at the speed of light in an experiment much like the OPERA collaboration experiment that first seemed to show faster-than-light neutrinos.

From the abstract of the paper posted on the Arxiv . . .

"The result is compatible with the simultaneous arrival of all events with equal speed, the one of light . . . This is in a striking difference with the reported result of OPERA that claimed that high energy neutrinos from CERN shouldarrive at LNGS about 60 ns earlier than expected from luminal speed."

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THE BIOTECH REVOLUTION Visions Of The Future
BBC

post from Canadian BioTechnologist2.0 on 16 March 2012 05:24:17 PM. © Canadian BioTechnologist2.0

Genetics and biotechnology promise a future of unprecedented health and longevity: DNA screening could prevent many diseases, gene therapy could cure them and, thanks to lab-grown organs, the human body could be repaired as easily as a car, with spare parts readily available. Ultimately, the ageing process itself could be slowed down or even halted. [...]

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Biotechnology Science Fiction on your Kindle this
weekend

post from Canadian BioTechnologist2.0 on 16 March 2012 05:16:37 PM. © Canadian BioTechnologist2.0

The Aztlán Kid What if the Mexica people had defeated Cortez in 1519? This book imagines what would have happened if this once flourishing and highly advanced nation of people did not succumb to the onslaught of Herman Cortez and the Spanish Empire. ? What if they had pushed Cortez and his men back into [...]

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Protect Yourself Against Nuclear Weapons

post from Science Ain't So Bad on 16 March 2012 05:16:04 PM. © Science Ain't So Bad

LOOKIN' GOOD!

EASY ON THE RADIATION, OKAY?

EVEN HOPELESS STUFF’S NOT HOPELESS

If you get a big dose of radiation (like some of the workers at Japan?s Fukushima Daiichi power plant) you’re hosed, aren?t you?

Not necessarily.

Here?s the thing. Radioactivity?s scary. If the blast don?t get you, the ?vapours? will.

It?s invisible, insidious, and inevitable.

Until now if you got overexposed to radiation, all anyone could do was to toss you in the shower, give you a pill (which didn?t do much good) and keep you comfortable while your hair fell out.

Seriously.

GOOD NEWS

If ”the bomb” blows you up, no pill is going to put you back together again. But Rebecca Abergel (Berkeley Lab’s Glenn T. Seaborg Center) is doing great work on a decontamination pill. It?ll flush the actinides (the ?nasty stuff?) out into your urine before much damage is done.

Maybe bombs ARE being made under the mountains of your least favorite countries. But you can rest easy now with an antidote by your bedside.

Science. An answer for everything, eh? Snide comments aside, this is a terrific project with the potential to save lives; it deserves a ScienceAintSoBadRating = 10 .

Thank you for the good work, Gleen T. Seaborg Center and Dr. Abergel.

———————
Image credits to Intergalacticrobotos.blogspot.com
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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New Gecko Insights Inspire Even Stronger
Adhesives

Exploring newly appreciated roles of lizards' tendons and bones allows researchers to develop seriously sticky 'skin.'

Photo courtesy of Mike Bartlett, Duncan Irschick, Al Crosby | University of Massachusetts Amherst

At first glance, a gecko skittering up a wall and a flat-screen television attached to the same wall have little in common.

But researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have made the connection.

First they showed the previously unappreciated role of geckos' tendons and bones in the little lizards' ability to climb up walls without slipping. Then they used that knowledge -- plus a large helping of human ingenuity -- to create an adhesive device that can hold the television securely on a wall.

"Our 'Geckskin' device is about the size of an index card and can hold a maximum force of about 700 pounds while adhering to a smooth surface such as glass," said Alfred Crosby, associate professor of polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

To produce it, Crosby added, "We focused on the properties and attributes of the gecko: high capacity, easy release, reliability, and the ability to stick to a variety of surfaces."

"This is definitely an important contribution," said Metin Sitti, professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert on small-scale locomotion and manipulation, who did not participate in the project.

Crosby carried out the research with his doctoral candidate Michael Bartlett and biology professor Duncan Irschick, with support from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency.

Scientists have long recognized that so-called van der Waals forces, which produce weak electrical attraction among molecules, cause adhesion between tiny hairs in geckos' toes, known as setae, and vertical surfaces on which the geckos climb.

However, efforts to apply that process on a large scale have had limited success. Scotch tape gains its stickiness through the van der Waals forces.

"But you can't make the forces stronger," Crosby said. "People have tried to produce artificial setae," Irschick added. "But they don't scale up effectively."

To develop a different approach, the UMass team studied the large-scale structure of geckos' feet.

Expanding on research by University of Calgary biologist Anthony Russell, the team discovered how tendons, bones, and skin work together to produce the easily reversible adhesion that causes a gecko's feet to stick to a wall briefly and then release from it as the tiny lizard moves up, down, or sideways on the wall. The process works in large part because of the role of the tendons. In most creatures, tendons connect bones to muscles.

"But in geckos' feet, uniquely, the tendons stretch from bone into skin," Irschick explained.

The group used that knowledge as the basis of an adhesive system stronger than any relying on van der Waals forces.

"We wanted something that would cover a large area and would become increasingly stiff," Crosby recalled. "But those demands are contradictory."

Scotch tape, for example, covers a large area, but is soft and thus unable to hold significant weight. The geckos' anatomy suggested that the team could overcome the contradiction by using a specially treated fabric. A fabric can be both soft and stiff. A tablecloth, for instance, can drape over a table and conform to the shape of anything underneath it while remaining stiff if you try to pull it. For their Geckskin, the researchers mimicked the anatomy of geckos' feet.

"We took a fabric, put a bit of rubber around it, and sewed another piece of fabric -- the 'tendon' -- into that 'skin'," Crosby explained.

Since the fabric is stiff and the rubber soft, the combination yields a stiff but flexible system that drapes over a large surface area, permitting maximum contact and adhesion.

Geckskin's strength does not apply in all directions. While it is almost impossible to move it along any surface on which it is mounted, Crosby said, "a gentle peel from one edge allows it to be effortlessly removed from the surface on command."

It can be removed and stuck onto another surface as often as needed without leaving any residue or losing adhesive strength.

The team has used a variety of ingredients for the rubber component. In particular polydimethylsiloxane, a component of silly putty, holds the promise, in combination with fabric, of developing an inexpensive, strong, and durable dry adhesive.

The researchers also tried a variety of fabrics.

"Those with the greatest load capacity use the fibers such as Kevlar and fiber-based fabrics that are most stiff," Crosby said.

According to Crosby, Geckskin stacks up well against current commercial adhesives.

"The force per area is definitely higher than all the pressure-sensitive adhesives," Crosby said. "The combination of high force and user release is not there in available adhesive systems. And unlike Velcro, Geckskin doesn't need a matching surface."

The team, which reported its advance in the journal Advanced Materials , is now discussing possible commercialization of the technology.

Peter Gwynne, ISNS Contributor
Inside Science News Service

A former science editor of Newsweek, Peter Gwynne is a freelance science writer based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts

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Week of Waxwings

It’s truly been the week of the waxwing here at BSI. Just a day after Gary’s wife Bette spotted a group of Bohemian Waxwings feasting on crabapples outside their home in Edmonton, Jeff spotted a solitary waxwing outside his home in Maine[...]

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http://www.borealbirds.org/blog/?p=1015

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