Hair are the Fur Folks

Here's a photo of these Hair-Fur scientists.

It's from the original news release. No comments, please.

Hair cuts for Chimps

This article notes that hair on your head continually grows yet fur stops growing once it reaches a certain length. Thus, the researchers conclude that fur is different from hair.

I can see their point as my dog simply sheds his fur when he's through with it, and grows more when he needs it. Yet, speaking for myself, I have to get a hair cut to look good (although balding) yet my back hair, arm hair, leg hair, etc. do seem to be of limited length.

As you read this article, ask yourself: Does this research deserve and Ig Noble Prize? It's a candidate for the next ceremony, I'll tell you that.

More on Dick Termes

As I was looking through Dick Termes's homepage, see my earlier post, he links to an an article that describes his work. I'm printing the article for reading later (I've already been staring at my laptop for too long) but others may want to read it as well.

Spheres by Ivars Peterson

Ivars Peterson who we've cited before, has an article on Dick Termes who paints on spheres. Peterson write that Termes imagines he's in the middle of a sphere looking out. Depending on what's outside the sphere determines what he sees. He then imagines what's outside, while imagining he's inside, and paints what he'd see.

Here's a link to Termes's homepage, by the way, from Peterson's article:
http://www.termespheres.com/gallery1.html

Mathworld

Stephen Wolfram's site of Mathworld is terrific and worth visiting. Everyone should have this site as a bookmark to visit whenever a question arises. I don't have time to write more now, but I hope to add more on this link later.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Book Review: The Algorithmic Beauty of Sea Shells

Read the review of the book on the beauty of sea shells. The book looks intriguing but the Springer price is, as always, very higher. It's a little cheaper at amazon.com if you're interested.

Combinatorics Journal: Online

I just ran across this journal while perusing the links from Ivars Peterson's article on packing discs within a disc. (See my earlier post).
The journal looks good, at least good enough to bookmark for later reviewing. It seems pretty technical and maybe too much for some readers. However, like most articles, just glancing over them gives you a feel (if not more) of what's there and that's something more than nothing.

Also, I like that the site gives you a few options in how to view the papers. You can see them as pdf files, which works with Adobe Acrobat readers. Or, you can see the LaTeX file and start to actually "work with" the papers. Not to plagarize them, but to see how the authors went about putting the papers together. Very nice!

Billiard Packing in Circles and Shapes

Here's a good article on packing disks within disks. It's not particularly technical but it gives a good idea of the area. Plus, the references are excellent for further reading.

This comes from Ivars Peterson who has written fantastic books on mathematics. Look for his books and read them. They are good.

GEEK.COM: Go here

A good site for computer information. It's been around for years and has only gotten better every year. Really a good place to visit and learn. Enjoy.

Human Heart Modeled for Electrical Signals

A Norwegian researcher, Kirsten ten Tusscher, modeled the electrical functioning of the human heart. In one article, there was a note that the patterns are NOT as chaotic as expected. This is, no pun intended, unexpected. The human EEG has often been cited as an example of a chaotic system. To see that this may not be true would be a shock, indeed.

Getting closer to playing God

Researchers at Rockerfeller University have created an "almost" biological cell. Quote:
Their creations, small synthetic vesicles that can process (express) genes, resemble a crude kind of biological cell.
End Quote
Nice going guys. I just hope there are enough precautions to keep the cells, whenever they get that far, from naturally mutating to dangers to currently living organisms, man included. The last paragraph says much:
Quote:
He said: "If you take our system out of its environment, it just doesn't function."
End Quote
Let's hope that's right but usually "life finds a way" (from the movie Jurassic Park) to keep living.
Tip: Ilachina

Looking at the Stars

I found this PowerPoint presentation while looking for sites about the soloar system with my 12-year old daughter. This looks like a good presentation and I especially like the notes on the Ptolemaic system.

Junk DNA: Don't bet on it

Junk DNA, long strands that scientists thought served no useful function but were considered to left-over from evolutions are no longer believed to be junk.

The long strands of DNA for which scientists found no use, now seem to play a role in genes. Read the article for more.

The lesson: Because scientists could not find the use of these DNA strands, they immediately deemed them junk. A little humility then and more research would have let the scientists discover the true nature. Arrogance, that's no junk.

Men like subordinate women for marriage

A study by the University of Michigan finds that men prefer to women who are subordinate to them. The findings seem to correlate with what people believed already. However, read how they did this study.

The researchers showed college students pictures of a man (or woman) and read a short bio on the person shown. The researchers asked the subjects to rate the person as to how much they would like to marry such an individual.

That's all fine and good for a study, but I think the real-world has more complexity to it. It would have been better to survey married couples and see what the ratio of subordinate women to men is then to simply ask students questions about a fictious potential mate.

Engineering Salaries: Chart

Here's a good chart on salaries for engineers. Nicely laid out. If you ever wanted to go into engineering, here's a way to see how you'd do money-wise. Of course, money is but one reason to go in a profession; still, it's good to know what to expect.

I might point out that Andy Grove, former chairman of Intel, was an engineer. In fact, many of the wealthiest people have some engineering training (at least a Bachelor's degree).

Orders of Magnitude--Secret Worlds: The Universe Within

This is a terrific program. Secret Worlds: The Universe Within and run the program. This is a beautiful demo showing the idea of size based on orders of magnitude changs. It's simply wonderful. Enjoy!

Journal of Improbable Research

A new issue is now available. This is a terrific magazine with all sorts of zany (or whacky) research papers and people cites. I don't subscribe to it, but I do subscribe to the newsletter (MINI-Air) and that's a hoot, too. Go to the link, or see the magazine at www.improbable.com and enjoy. You'll be glad you did.

American Students behind the World in Math

Today's Washington Post reports that American students rank 24 out of 29 countries in their math skills. The post says:

"U.S. students continue to lag behind students elsewhere in basic math skills, despite recent gains in standardized tests at the national level."

There are many reasons for this, but let me cite two. One is that we've made passing standardized tests the standard instead of teaching students. I have an 8th grader and her math text is filled with pages and problems on taking tests. This kind of material pushes out the mathematics itself. When students are taught to tests they aren't being taught mathematics.

Second, and I couldn't find a link to this in the Washington Post online but it is in the print edition, is that the National Science Foundation has had its budget cut, again. We are starving science and while much of science is NOT funded via the NSF, they do provide seed funding for risky projects. It's a disgrace that we're at this point but we have only ourselves (and our values) to blame.

CO2: Stored in soil under trees, global warming slowed

Northeastern researchers find that the soil below oak trees stores carbon dioxide when the trees are exposed to high concentrations of CO2. This may explain why researchers cannot find the CO2 they expect and may help show that global warming (if it really exists!) is going along slower than expected.

This is another case of mother nature taking care of us. If CO2 is a problem, and I'm not convinced it is, here we see that nature filters the atmosphere or at least moves the excess CO2 to a safer location.

God bless mother nature!

Math book reviews

The Mathematical Association of America has posted new book reviews. I don't know these books, but their reviews are worth reading. Enjoy.

Links of Interest

Let me give you some links of immediate interest.



Bytes Of Science: An Internet Magazine



IMI for my Homepage



Tao of Digital Photography: Andy's Blog

Thanks to Andy

This site was the novel idea of my friend, Dr. Andy Ilachinski. I want to thank him for suggesting it and for his encouragement. Thanks very much, Andy!

First Posting

This is my first posting to this blog and I wanted to try it out.