Leeches Help with Wildlife Studies

Scientists have realized that they can use the blood from leeches to determine what types of wildlife have been in the area.  The blood from a leech contains the DNA of animals from which it has taken blood.

This is extremely helpful to wildlife biologists studying difficult to find or endangered species.  A leech will come right to any human standing in a stream, so they are simple to collect.  The DNA of the bitten animals remains in the gut of a leech for quite a while, so a DNA analysis can be very valuable.

For example, 25 leeches were collected in a Vietnamese national park.  The researchers discovered the DNA of a small-toothed ferret badger in one of the leeches - and this was exciting because there had never been a sighting of that species of badger in that national park.

So leeches can be an inexpensive, simple tool in the toolkit of biologists wherever leeches naturally live.

Shooting THE HOBBIT in 48 fps

For 80 years, cinema movies have been filmed in a camera at the rate of 24 frames-per-second.  Peter Jackson, however, is using twice that rate in the filming of The Hobbit - a first for a major motion picture.

The advantage is apparently it can capture motion and camera movement much sharper, and it works better for 3D (The Hobbit is being filmed in 3D).

10 minutes of the film were recently previewed, and the reviews by many were harsh.  One quote was:

"The footage I saw looked terrible … completely non-cinematic. The sets looked like sets … sets don’t even look like sets when you’re on them live, but these looked like sets. The magical illusion of cinema is stripped away completely.”




James Cameron is an advocate for the new technology.  And Peter Jackson says:

"Looking at 24 frames every second may seem ok–and we’ve all seen thousands of films like this over the last 90 years–but there is often quite a lot of blur in each frame, during fast movements, and if the camera is moving around quickly, the image can judder or “strobe.”

Shooting and projecting at 48 fps does a lot to get rid of these issues. It looks much more lifelike, and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3-D."

We will all get to judge for ourselves come December.

A Crab With Flair

Four new species of crabs have been discovered on Palawan island of the Philippines, including this one:



Scientists are not sure what evolutionary advantage this coloration provides, except perhaps to allow these crabs to identify their own kind.

Chernobyl - 26 Years Later

Reactor #4 exploded on the morning of April 26, 1986.  It is still leaking radiation today, and there is a large exclusionary zone around the plant that is off-limits.

Here are some photos of the city Pripyat today, 50,000 once lived:








http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/04/road-through-chernobyl/?pid=1924

Abandoned Town as Art

Belgium ordered the abandonment of the town of Doel in the 1990's to make way for a port facility.  The buildings were never razed, and instead of a port, it is now part of a nature preserve.

But over the years squatters have painted murals on many of the structures, turning this ghost town into an art museum that will slowly be reclaimed by nature.

The Iceberg that Sank the Titanic

At least two different ships' crew members took photos of this iceberg in the days just after the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic.  The iceberg had a streak of red paint, a sure sign that something large had struck it recently.




http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/titanic-iceberg-history/

A Life-Sized Starship Enterprise in Vegas

Back in the early 1990's, officials in Las Vegas were trying to figure out how to bring business back from The Strip to the downtown area.

One idea was to build a full-lize replica of Star Trek's Enterprise. It would include all of the key rooms/locations and also have live shows.

Most everyone loved the idea, but an executive from Paramount felt that if the attraction were a flop, it would be a highly visible flop forever, as opposed to a bad movie that people forget about after a few months.

It could have been pretty neat!



http://io9.com/5900012/how-las-vegas-missed-out-on-a-life+sized-starship-enterprise

Repairing Potholes with Putty

Students at Case Western suggest that a simple, stop-gap way to fill potholes is with a mixture of corn starch and water.  This fluid is a putty that will fill the entire pothole and all its crevices, but it becomes stiffer and quite viscous when a strong force is applied to it - like a car tire rolling over it.

It is cheap, simple, and anyone can do it.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2012/04/12/bright-idea-filling-potholes-with-non-newtonian-fluids/

Real or Fake?

Real.  This is a 3-month old white-handed gibbon in a German zoo.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/04/fac-2.html

A Niceness Gene?

Oxytocin and vasopressin are two hormones that are known to affect how "nice" someone is. It turns out that there are specific gene receptors that boost the effectiveness of those hormones, especially in a person who views the world as a threatening place.

In other words, someone with those genes is more likely to be generous and engaged in civic duty.

Any chance we can splice those genes into people we don't like?

Computer Monitor Tells You to Sit Up Straight

Philips has a new computer monitor that includes sensors to determine if your posture is okay.  It checks how far your face (by measuring your pupils) is from the monitor, and it checks the angle of your neck to see if you are slouching.  It also lets you know if you've been sitting too long at the computer and need to get up and take a break.



http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/new-philips-monitor-uses-sensor-to-promote-better-posture/

Measuring a Single Proton

Scientists have developed a scale that is sensitive enough to detect the weight of a single proton. That is 0.000000000000000000000001 grams - a yoctogram.  They use vibrating carbon nanotubes at a temperature of -200C.  At least that means the technology won't be coming to a bathroom scale anytime soon...

Google's New Augmented-Reality Glasses

Goggle has revealed a prototype of a new pair of glasses.  These glasses include a camera and technology that displays information overlayed on top of what you are seeing, like the yellow line in a football game that represents the 1st Down marker.

It can display things like map routes right in front of you, weather updates, reviews on restaurants you are passing, etc.

How many years until they talk about implanting this type of technology directly into your eyes?



http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/google-reveals-augmented-reality-glasses-project-glass.php?ref=fpblg

New Stars in Titanic 3D

After viewing the original James Cameron film, some scientists noted that the night sky was completely wrong for the time and place of the disaster. In fact, half of the sky was a mirror image of the other half.

Cameron, known as a perfectionist, has rectified the situation for the Titanic 3D release. This time the star field will be a perfect match for the time and place when Kate Winslet looks up.

The Flying Car is Here

This years's famed New York Auto Show will include, for the first time, a flying car. The Terrafugia Transition is a small airplane that seats two, has foldable wings, and drives as a street-legal car. It costs $279,000 and is good for short flights of a couple hundred miles.  Not quite the Jetsons, but still pretty neat...

Bees Use Medicine to Fight Infection

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found that when honeybees get sick, members of the colony go out and find anti-fungal plant extracts.  They then return with these healing extracts and coat the hives with them.

In the past, U.S. beekeepers have tried to minimize this resin in the hives because it is sticky and hard to work with.

It turns out the bees know what they are doing.