The Daily Science Nugget...

[D. Allan]

... While Bravus is busy writing textbooks and getting caught up on other duties, perhaps this thread will help satisfy a curiosity about science for those of us who are non-scientists. Real scientists, of course, are doubly welcome, and needed, I hasten to add, in order to keep this right-brained nit-wit from getting too fuzzy, whatever that means. (See what I mean?!?)

Well here goes:

[D. Allan]

"No law of physics that we know of prohibits time travel," said Dr. J. Richard Gott, a Princeton astrophysicist.

In his recent book "The Universe in a Nutshell," Dr. Stephen W. Hawking wrote, "Even if it turns out that time travel is impossible, it is important that we understand why it is impossible."

Read more at : Back to the Future

If all this is just too mysterious for some of us, well here is a more mundane fact from an earlier century:

"According to an old English system of time units, a moment is one and a half minutes."

The next time someone asks you to wait 'just a moment' you can glance at your watch and time them.

[D. Allan]

The average person has 100,000 hairs on his/her head. Each hair grows about 5 inches (12.7 cm) every year.

So... in one year a person grows 500,000 inches of hair.

Divided by 12 that is 41,667 feet.

Divided that by 5280 and we come up with roughly 8 miles.

In a 75 years the average person grows about 600 miles of hair!

A Canadian, however, grows in the same time more than 960 kilometers of hair.

[Gail]

There is a difference in the number of hairs a person has according to their hair colour, isn't there?

[D. Allan]

from wikipedia:

Average number of head hairs (Caucasian) [3]

color number of hairs diameter

Blonde 146,000 1⁄1500th to 1⁄500th inch 17 to 51 micrometers

Black 110,000 1⁄400th to 1⁄250th inch 64 to 100 micrometers

Brunette 100,000 variable variable

Red 86,000 variable variable

According to the chart blonds have 46% more hair than brunets. I suppose they might grow 46% more length in a life time. But have the studies been done??!!

Check it out at: Wikipedia

This is only caucasian hair, and doesn't consider other great-looking hair like African, Oriental/Asian,

[Amelia]

If avg hair growth is 5" a year and I get my hair cut almost every month @ ~ 3/4" that comes to 9" a year. I knew my hair grew like weeds.

[D. Allan]

Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, born 300 years ago this month, classified and named more than 4000, animals and nearly 8,000 plants. - Smithsonian vol. 38, No. 2, May, p. 105, article: "Organization Man" by Kennedy Warne

I doubt that Carl Linnaeus, named any dinosaurs!

"Dinosaur Names

So where do dinosaur names come from? Dinosaur names come mostly from the people who discovered the dinosaurs. The names are made up from words in the Latin and Greek languages. Here is a list of Latin and Greek root words commonly used in dinosaur names. The meanings (included below) of these words help tell us the meaning of the dinosaur's name.

WORD..................MEANING

allo..................other or different

anato.................duck

ankylo................crooked

anuro.................tail

apato.................deceptive

avi...................bird

bary..................heavy

brachio...............arm

bronto................thunder

cera..................horned

caudia................tail

cephalo...............head

chasmo................opening

coeli.................hollow

compso................pretty

diplo.................two

dino..................terrible

docus.................beam

don...................tooth

elasmo................plated

gnathus...............jaw

hadro.................large

ichthyo...............fish

lopho.................ridged

mega..................large

metro.................measured

micro.................small

nycho.................clawed

pachy.................thick

para..................beside

pod, ped..............foot

proto.................first

raptor................thief

rex...................king

saurus................lizard

stego.................roof

steno.................slender

super.................superior

thero.................beast

tri...................three

tryanno...............tyrant

ultra.................extreme

urus..................tail

veloci................speedy

-by George Manty at http://www.mantyweb.com/dinosaur/dinosaur_names.htm

When were dinosaurs first discovered? Who gave them the name dinosaurs (terrible lizards)?

[Amelia]

Wow, interesting. So a stenographer is a slender writer? Maybe they should have been called barygraphers or pachygraphers. Then they wouldn't have been chased around the desk all the time. Hehehehe

[D. Allan]

:)

The Greek or Latin terms are useful for office taxonomy. Has anyone ever had a boss who was 'pachycephalic?'

[Amelia]

Oooooo good one! ROFL

[D. Allan]

"A laser physicist and former researcher with NASA'S Jet Propulsion Laboratory, [Robert] Lang, 46, is a pioneer in technical and computational origami, which focuses on the mathematics behind the art."

- Smithsonian, June 2007, p. 74

Mr. Lang's math results in a melding of science and art that is wonderful to behold.

Go here to the interesting magazine article:

http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2007/june/origami.php

Go here to Mr. Lang's Origami web-site and browse his gallery. 'Really-really-good:'

http://www.langorigami.com/

[D. Allan]

"Captive shark had 'virgin birth'"

"Female hammerhead sharks can reproduce without having sex, scientists confirm."

Read the rest of the online article at: the BBC News page.

[Amelia]

"What I'm saying is...nature finds a way"

Jurassic Park

[D. Allan]

Parthenogenesis is what they call it. Does it happen to humans?

parthenogenesis, definition,n.

A form of reproduction in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new individual, occurring commonly among insects and certain other arthropods.

parthenogenesis etymology

[New Latin : Greek parthenos, virgin + genesis.]

parthenogenesis derivatives

parthe·no·ge·netic (-j-ntk) adj.

parthe·no·ge·neti·cal·ly adv.

-yourdictionary.com

[D. Allan]

"There are no known cases of mammalian parthenogenesis in the wild.

In April 2004, scientists at Tokyo University of Agriculture used parthenogenesis to successfully create fatherless mice: see Kaguya.

The beginnings of artificial human parthenogenesis has been performed in the lab. [9] In theory, the process could be used to reproduce humans, but this is unlikely due to ethical concerns. Parthenogenesis in mice and monkeys often results in abnormal development. This high level of birth defects, plus the fact that parthenotes have only half the genetic diversity of their parent, means that research on human parthenogenesis is focused on the production of embryonic stem cells for use in medical treatment, not as a reproductive strategy." -wikipedia

It seem to be more common than I thought; especially among insects, reptiles and sharks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis:

[Amelia]

15 different whiptail lizards do this also. No males, only females. From what I have read, all offspring of parthenogenesis are clones.

So here is a question. Did God create these species with single sex reprodution or is this a modification from the fall?

[D. Allan]

Wikipedia says parthenogenesis does not result in clones...

" Parthenogenesis is distinct from artificial animal cloning, a process where the new organism is identical to the cell donor. Parthenogenesis is truly a reproductive process which creates a new individual or individuals from the naturally varied genetic material contained in the eggs of the mother. A litter of animals resulting from parthenogenesis may contain all genetically unique siblings without any twins or multiple numbers from the same genetic material. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis "

... except in some ants where the female queens clone themselves to make more queens and the males can clone themselves by 'ablating' the female genetics from an egg.

had to look up 'ablating'

"ablate definition

v. ab·lat·ed, ab·lat·ing, ab·lates

v.tr.

1. Medicine To excise, amputate, or otherwise destroy the biological function of (a body tissue, for example).

2. To remove by erosion, melting, evaporation, or vaporization.

v.intr.

To become ablated; undergo ablation.

ablate etymology

[back-formation from ablation.]"

[D. Allan]

Quote:

So here is a question. Did God create these species with single sex reprodution or is this a modification from the fall?

I have to leave that to the theologians.

"...nature finds a way."

[D. Allan]

Weird Science

"You might not want to do it, but removing half of your brain will not significantly impact who you are,"

writes Charles Choi in : Scientific American Magazine.

[Amelia]

Quote:

The procedure is among the most drastic kinds of brain surgery—"You can't take more than half. If you take the whole thing, you've got a problem," Johns Hopkins neurologist John Freeman quips.

What a funny doctor.

[D. Allan]

In Croatia they have a big problem with landmines. To meet the problem they are training bees to sniff them out.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6701517.stm

[D. Allan]

Foster's brewery and scientists from the Universitiy of Queensland are making a 'beer battery.' Actually its a microbial fuel cell (MFC) and generates power from the waste water of the beer making process.

click here at : BEER BATTERY for more about it.

click here at : MFC to visit the first ever web-site about microbial fuel cells.

[Amelia]

From: Jumping Spiders of North America

Quote:

Phidippus mystaceus has my vote as the most colorful of all the jumping spiders. It is this spider that offers the photographer the best chance of capturing images of the spider's retina, which is not fixed in place, like our own. The jumping spider's retina is moveable. Because the retina is the darkest part of the eye, you can sometimes look into the eye of a jumping spider and see it changing color as it moves to follow your actions. When it is darkest, you know the spider is looking straight at you, because then you are looking down into its retina.

[Denise]

Ewwwwww Melia!!! I nearly jumped outa my seat when I seen this! LOL

[D. Allan]

Isn't He handsome? Here is his female counterpart:

From Wikipedia:

Phidippus mystaceus is a species of jumping spider that is found in North America. Females grow to about one centimeter in body length.

Name

The species name is derived from the Ancient Greek mystax, meaning "moustache", which especially the females of this species feature. An older synonym of the species is P. asinarius, referring to the markings above the eyes that look similar to donkey ears.

Further reading

Roach, S.H. (1988). Reproductive periods of Phidippus species (Araneae, Salticidae) in South Carolina. Journal of Arachnology 16:95-101. PDF

External links

Many pictures of P. mystaceus at BugGuide http://bugguide.net/node/view/23004/bgimage