Science Open Thread
I’d thought I’d highlight some of the interesting science stories I’ve seen lately.
Music for the Monkeys
This is a really interesting story about music and its ability to effect emotions. It’s a great example of the scientific method.
[David] Teie has been developing a theory to explain why music plays on human emotions. His theory is that music relates to the most primitive sounds we make and respond to, like laughter, heartbeats, or a mother’s cooing.
“When I thought I had all the pieces put into place, I figured any good theory is testable, so one of the ways to test it would be to see if I could write music that would be affective for species other than human,” he says.
So David Teie contacted Chuck Snowdon who did research with tamarinds at the University of Wisconsin (go Badgers!). Professor Snowdon sent recordings of fearful tamarinds and happy tamarinds to David Teie and he composed music specifically based on these sounds.
He played the compositions on his cello and then electronically boosted them up three octaves, to a pitch that matched the monkeys’ voices. Monkeys don’t respond at all to music written for humans, but they did respond when they heard this composition.
Snowdon says people may not be calmed by this relatively fast tempo of one of the pieces, but the monkeys in his lab certainly were.
As expected, when the fearful composition was played the monkeys became quite agitated.
Say Cheese!
Scientists at IBM used Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) to get an image of the atoms in a molecule.
It may look like a piece of honeycomb, but this lattice-shaped image is the first ever close-up view of a single molecule.
Scientists from IBM used an atomic force microscope (AFM) to reveal the chemical bonds within a molecule.
‘This is the first time that all the atoms in a molecule have been imaged,’ lead researcher Leo Gross said.
AFM image of pentacene
Coral Reefs in Trouble
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is in trouble.
The Great Barrier Reef is a world heritage site and its waters are managed but it could face destruction by 2050.
The reef, which stretches for 1,200 miles off the northeast coast of Australia, has “poor” prospects of survival as a result of over-development and a failure by the relevant authorities to protect it from illegal fishing and chemical run-off, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said its first report on the state of the reef’s health.
The report warned that damage to mangroves, increasing algae on coral reefs, ocean acidification and coral bleaching were already evident.
Coral reefs are like the ocean’s canaries in a coal mine. They’ve been in trouble for some time from the changes in the ocean due to climate change.
It now seems certain that coral reefs will be the first marine ecosystem to suffer extreme damage and possible collapse from climate change. The major consequences of increasing greenhouse gases on coral reefs include:
1. coral bleaching from warming oceans;
2. rising ocean acidification from dissolved carbon dioxide (CO2);
3. more severe storms; and
4. rising sea levels.
Ocean acidification is one consequence of climate change that has not been discussed much. Oceans absorb about 1/3 of the carbon dioxide emissions (1/3 is absorbed by plants and 1/3 goes into the atmosphere). The reaction of carbon dioxide with water to form carbonic acid is important for the ocean ecosystem but it is an equilibrium reaction – that means increasing carbon dioxide pushes the equilibrium to the carbonic acid side and that increases ocean acidity (decreasing pH). Indeed, the pH of the ocean has decreased 0.1 pH unit in this century. That is a huge change and it has consequences for sea creatures that depend on carbonate to make their shells. This effects the whole ocean ecosystem.
Tags: Open Thread, Science
UI
I don’t have the link, but the biology story that has fascinated me lately is the work done with crows and their ability to problem-solve. That’s the one where they are shown a prize of food down a hole, but to get it they have to use two sticks in the proper sequence to do two different things, and we are discovering that their approach is not random.
In astronomy the hot news is that Kepler may be able to detect habitable moons around super-jovians that are as small as .2 Earth diameters.
And in evolutionary history, it becomes apparent that milk-drinking (the ability to digest lactose) only appeared about 7,500 years ago, which is intriguing because it occurs right about the time that farming people with a different mitochondrial DNA background were replacing the original hunter-gathers in eastern and southern Europe.
Just in case–due to lack of comments on this thread–you thought you were the only science geek around.
LOL, Steve. Thanks for the pity comment. 🙂
Yes, lactose tolerance is something that is very unique to humans. It definitely is some kind of evolutionary adaptation.
As far as animals problem solving, there’s been quite a few studies showing this. My favorite one is one I call (in my mind) bees can do math. It was study where the researchers would move the food a certain distance every day and it got to where the bees could predict where the food would be the next day.
Steve,
If you haven’t heard this story about crows, you’ll love this link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106826971
I also did a post several months back about a film with two birds that naturalists now believe indicates an example of necrophiliac gay sex. Seriously.
Do either of you visit Science Daily on a regular basis? I’m hooked.
That was a cool link, A1! Crows aren’t scared of Dick Cheney. I guess that means they don’t have good judgment.
I haven’t been looking at Science Daily but I’ll start checking it out. I like Scientific American, NOVA Science Now, and various Science Blogs. The Guardian U.K. also has pretty good science coverage as well.
“The Guardian U.K. also has pretty good science coverage as well.”
huh? you are joking, right?
Thanks, UI. I don’t know if you have noticed, but the local crow population has been hit hard by West Nile virus. I miss them.
Ever since I was a kid, I have never believed that humans are the most “intelligent” animal. Certainly by some definitions we are, but I think other animals, like whales and maybe crows, are probably smarter than us, using some alternative definitions of intelligence.
Science Daily
Scientific American
NOVA Science Now – ooo…they have an article on the Anthrax investigation. I’ll have to watch that one.
A lot of animals are extremely smart. Some of them are quite amazing. Obviously crows are smarter than humans at identifying individuals of different species. I think humans think speaking and writing is the ultimate judge of animal intelligence but there’s a lot of stuff other animals can do that we can’t do.
rj, as far at the Guardian U.K., I don’t read it much, basically the only time is when I get links to science articles. The ones I’ve read have been well-written but I’m definitely not an expert on their science coverage.
I think humans think speaking and writing is the ultimate judge of animal intelligence…
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