Cultural evolution in crows?

Crows give chimps a run for their money. That's some smart damn crows!

p.s. another example of smart animal tool use.

Change Blindness

Also known as "Inattentional Blindness" is the inability to recognize visual changes that occur in your direct field of perception because you are paying attention to something else. An easy example would be something like not noticing that a street light changed colour even though you are looking right at it because you are listening to your friend talking to you. This is related to our ability to block out extraneous information and focus on specific stimuli. Which is advantageous when you are trying to listen to a single conversation in a noisy room, but not so good when you are called on to be a witness to a crime that happened right in front of you while you were busy. Some people have taught themselves to pay attention to specific stimuli above all else because it holds some special fascination for them. These are people who have a "good memory for faces/details/colours/bones/etc". And some people have trained themselves to be more conscious of changes in their surroundings in general, these are people who are "cops/spies/nosy/etc". Anyway, now that you are forewarned that that is what we're doing, here are a few good videos on the issue. Good times being nerdy!

First, here is one discussing an interesting experiment on the subject:

I know most of you have seen that awareness video with the ball passing and the bear (here). I think that it is a bit of cheating in these types of videos because they are it intentionally telling you to focus on something else to trick you. These types of awareness tests are easy if you ignore the "task" you are given and just watch normally:

But try and do the task AND find the change. It's still hard to do even if you know to be looking for something crazy. It's so hard to focus on two things! This one is a good one because it is just distracting you instead of actively telling you to do something else:

Here is a good one done by the same city of London bike safety guys to do the moonwalking bear mentioned above. These series of ads were to raise awareness of people's lack of awareness of cyclists on the road. McShanty points if you find more than 3 changes (the bear turning into a suit of armor doesn't count because it's too obvious, find a harder one dang it!). This one is tough because even though you know to look for the changes, a lot is happening at once and you don't know where the changes will occur so it is hard to know where focus your attention. FYI there are 21 changes during the course of the video.

p.s. Without looking, did you see a red wagon behind the gorilla on the picture at the top of the post? Did you have to look before you knew the answer?

Animal Mummies

National Geographic has recently published an interactive article about Egyptian animal mummies. Interactive articles...they teach you while you learn! Hurray! Also, it has a lot of interesting tidbits like how the Egyptian Museum of Cairo's artifact ID numbers all begin with the letters CG. Did you know that hundreds of thousands on mummified cats were hauled from a mass grave near the village of Istabl Antar since their discovery in 1888. They were used as fertilizer in England. Much like the innumerable quantities of bison bones from mass kills here...but I digress. Besides that's all behind us now and current research is using these amazing specimens as windows into daily life in ancient Egypt, employing zooarchaeology (of course), experimental archaeology, and advanced imaging techniques to examine what species were present, their uses, and how the mummies were created (among other things). Cool beans!

The Egyptologist and zooarchaeologist featured in the National Geographic article is Dr. Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University at Cairo. In the following video from this article at Heritage Key, she explains some of her work.

Super fun Halloween bonus references (oooo scary!):
-Herodotus explains mummification
-The Apis bull and associated cult explained at the Virtual Egyptian Museum (see image to the right)

The Shock House 2009 (plus Zombie musings)

Scary fun for everyone. The Shock House is in Regina this year (it was in Melville the last 3 years). It was 8000 square feet of zombie fueled good times.

To go along with this theme, I will also share some zombie-related tidbits I've been saving up.



You know, I recently read "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (which is funny and also inspired me to finish reading Pride and Prejudice so I could compare and contrast).










As a taste, here is the first line comparison:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession
of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

vs.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

And so it goes. Anyway I enjoyed it for sure.

It also reminded me of how I promised LP I'd do a post on the Zombie Survival Guide (which he gave me for Christmas last year). Thanks to this book I size up houses I see for potential survivability in a zombie attack. I'm ruined forever now (but I love it). For example, when picking a house to hole up in during a zombie outbreak, remember to find one with a second floor that cannot be accessed from the ground, then you destroy the stairs and voila! Safe zone (but be sure to fill up the upstairs bathtub with water and stash as many tools and provisions upstairs as you can get your mitts on beforehand). For practice, here's a link to a fun flash zombie survival game.

Lastly, here is a link to Jonathan Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains". He did a project where he wrote a song every week for a year. This song is my favorite (careful it gets in your head...much like a zombie... hahaha! Weee.), but he has many other awesome ones. It was featured in How to Succeed in Evil "Cheap Labor" Part 2 (there is also part 1 and 3). How to Suceed in Evil is a podcast/comic book about Edwin Windsor, evil efficiency consultant.

The Chickens! How to Guide (vol.4): Making an Excavation Screen

I drew up some plans for some large excavation screens I made. I went uber-low tech and drew them in Paint too (it's easier than you'd think once you figure out your scale lines). The plans are also in the latest issue of the SAS Newsletter so they're even published (kind of). The reason I put these up here is because my first instinct when I was going to build new screens was to look for wood working plans on the interwebs. But to no avail because the best I could do was a plan for a tank-like shaker screen (but I wanted ones to be hung from from a tripod, hammock style from two trees, or what have you). So I thought I would do my social duty and post my plans here for other archaeology types to try (click to embiggen). They also work for geology soil sifters or compost sifters. Hey and if anyone out there downloads/uses the plans please leave a comment, I'd be interested to know if my social work was useful.

p.s. I put metric measurements because I don't care what the lumber industry says dang it (What are we? In the time of Charlemagne!?). But, since board types are named for their imperial height and width measurements (and S4S boards are subsequently finished to slightly less than that), you can check the "Did You Know?" box for S4S board dimension conversions.

Educational Sidebar: The Tilt-A-Whirl

aka. "tilted world" (according to Mom) is my Mom's favorite fair ride (also, a song by the Insane Clown Posse). The Tilt-A-Whirl was invented in 1926 by the Sellner Manufacturing Company, which continues to be the only source of new rides. A new Tilt-A-Whirl ride costs about $300,000 (depending on the options you get) and takes 4 people about 3 hours to set up (assuming they know what they're doing). It features seven cars that can seat 4-6 people per car meaning it can give rides to as many as 500 people in an hour.

The ride follows a chaotic orbit-like motion. The seven cars are each fixed to a pivot pin on a circular platform. These platforms follow a circuitous track with 3 hills and 3 valleys at a set speed of 6.5 rpm. This orbit causes variable centrifugal and gravitational forces to affect each car, which will rotate clockwise or counterclockwise on it's set pivot point at different speeds depending on multiple variables (e.g. where on the track the car was when the ride began, where it is on the track at a given moment, how much weight is in the car and where it is situated, the friction of the various contact points between the car and the track, etc.). Good times!

It has been calculated that when the platforms travel at very low speeds each car will complete one backward revolution as its platform goes over each hill. Whereas at high speeds each car will be stranded at its outer edge (like swinging a bucket of water around). But at intermediate speeds (say 6rpm?) the movement of the cars is so unpredictable it has even been used by mathematicians in chaos theory! However, as any Tilt-A-Whirl veteran knows the ride can be manipulated by strategic leaning or if the ride's operator decides to mess with you.

That's a spicy meatball!

Police dash cam of Meteor over Edmonton (Nov.20):

Did you know?
Meteors often burn up in the atmosphere, but if they survive the frictional heating and strike the Earth, they are called meteorites. The general feeling is that this meteor, since it was so big (like 10 tons) and relatively slow moving, could have been surviving meteorite fragments scattered across an 8x3km area in the Manitou Lake RM. A bounty of up to $10 a gram has been issued (but since much of the target area is cultivated fields those meteorite fragments will probably be the property of some lucky farmer).

Why actors would make good spies...

Maybe Team America wasn't so far off the mark?

Redd Blood Cells

In 2002, Steven McDonald laid down bass music to the White Stripes' "White Blood Cells" album, called it "Redd Blood Cells", and released it for free download. Steven is a founding member of the group Redd Kross, which explains the CD name and why he released it through their website (here is the myspace for the group). You can still download "Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground" from there but, unfortunately, the archived mp3's are no longer available on the site so you have to get it through file sharing (or from me when I get it). Of course there were copyright issues but it so happened that Steven ran into Jack White, asked him for permission and got the go ahead to keep it up. So there ya go. I learned this in a presentation about copyright laws yesterday. Fun times, we also saw this video, which explained the Redd Blood Cells project and "Creative Commons" licensing. I also learned this about GoogleEarth which is good because I have some images from it in my thesis.
p.s. You may remember the White Stripes from previous concert posts or from Updog&Indy.
p.p.s. Let's all learn about red blood cells from the neat website HowStuffWorks...learning is fun!

"Iraq War Ends" - New York Times

Sweet prank carried out by The Yes Men (The Yes Men website here). A fake edition of the New York Times announcing, among other things, the end of the Iraq War. Called a "special edition", they made up a whole 14-page paper and they even created an imitation New York Times webpage for it (note the real NYT website is here. Amazing resemblance!). They handed out 1000's of copies on Wednesday (although they postdated it July 4, 2009) in honour of the new President elect and burgeoning hope.

p.s. In other fake news: Stephen Colbert wins U.S. federal election...Only to have it snatched away...

US election results

The world watches with baited breath. Sad that many Canadians would have sacrificed their vote in our election for a chance to vote in the US election. Maybe if our voting system was more representative instead of first past the post...but I digress (Support electoral reform! Check out Fair Vote Canada!). At least no one in our election was really worried about it being rigged or that their vote would be randomly rejected. The fact that this is a serious concern (serious enough to be spoofed on Simpsons!) in a place like the US and that they haven't managed to think up a way to deal with it is horrible!

Politics is better with the Simpsons:


p.s.MSNBC has widgets like this one that you can automatically get imported to your blog in a post. Neat.

Post-election Update: WooHoo!

Dirty Jobs visits SkullsUnlimited

For those of you who have never processed specimens for an osteological comparative collection. Bear in mind that Skulls Unlimited does this on a much grander scale than a University or smaller operation would. Also, not everyone will use dermestid beetles or follow the exact same procedure.

Part 1


Part 2


Zooarchaeology nerd tips: SkullsUnlimited has a pretty sweet website that has many good comparative images and info on each of the specimens they sell.

Squirrel miscellany

That squirrel is a genius!


I saw the video and it put me in mind of this comic. Hilarious! It was so funny LP's vball team even used it as their logo. There is a different (more recent) version of Danger Squirrel here, but I like this one better. I'm pretty sure it's the same guy though, the comics at lonely fetus are pretty weird and usually quite dark but there are a few pretty funny gems in there.

Also, just to nerd it up a bit, here is some of the diagnostic features of the Sciurid skull. I believe the example used is the eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis). The image is from the immensely useful Animal Diversity Website.

Dinosaur!

In honour of Leonardo, the mummified dinosaur recently discovered in Montana, the first to be found with intact internal organs and stomach contents (and the new documentary "Secrets of the Dinosaur Mummy" airing on the discovery channel, which I'll probably post later once it is available), here is the documentary Dinosaur!" It was made in 1985, hosted by Christopher Reeve, it was one of the first of its kind featuring recreations of dinosaur life. A far cry from the fancy computer animation of today. We had this on VHS and watched it so many times! I remember thinking the part with the Tyrannosaurus was so freaky! Note a young(er) Robert Bakker who also makes an appearance in the Dinosaur Mummy documentary (check the preview here, he is such a character). FYI the bones discovered by Jim Jensen in 1979 and named "Ultrasaurus" in 1985 (later renamed "Ultrasauros" in 1995 because "Ultrasaurus" had already been published in 1983 by Haang Mook Kim as applied to a South Korean specimen he had discovered, which turned out to not be so big after all because he had mistaken a femur for a humerus), were later found to be parts of two separate dinosaurs, a Brachiosaurus and part of a Supersaurus that had been discovered at the same location. After that the term "Ultrasauros" came to be just another name for the Supersaurus, which was still really big.

Flying Pants

For little cp because she loved the books so much, The Sisterhood of the Flying Pants:






















and some other things that shouldn't have wings but do. Enjoy!

All theories proven with one graph!

From the Journal of Irreproducible Results (the science humor magazine).
This graph won first place in Funniest Graph competition. The winner of the funniest graph already published was a part of this hilarious open letter to the Kansas School Board. The graph highlights the "statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature".

This letter was already published in 2005 as the initial outting of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

CBC radio

Tonight's podcast of CBC Radio: The Best of Ideas is featuring:

Mistakes Were Made...By Others!
Why do people dodge responsibility when things fall apart? Why can’t political figures own up to their blunders? What’s behind so many domestic fights? The distinguished social psychologist Elliot Aronson tells us about the power of cognitive dissonance.




You may recall my extolling the virtues of this book on this post. You don't have to subscribe to the podcast you can download the mp3 or listen to it here. It is about an hour long but it is really interesting and describes many of the key points in the book, how cognitive dissonance works, and some of Aronson's history and educational anecdotes. Thanks to Dr.E for the heads up! I was driven to subscribing to a couple of other CBC podcasts too (DNTO and Quirks & Quarks). I'm just waiting for the podcast of Age of Persuasion to go online (this show used to be called "O'Reilly on Advertising") which we used to listen to at the bakery on Saturdays. A lot of good discussions revolved around the random spoutings of the CBC radio while making bread and donuts back in the day. Hurray for supporting Canadian broadcasting!

The Game

From XKCD comics:

Hurray! I'm free! Wait...does that work? Awww, dang it! I lost the game!

p.s. If you don't know about the game you are better off not knowing. If you still want to know then I have to tell you so click here and don't say I didn't warn you.

Mistakes were made (but not by me):

Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts
by
Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

Review: My Dad foisted this book on me so that someone would be able to argue about it with him. I must say, best psychobabble book ever! Highly readable and highly interesting! It discusses cognitive dissonance from the viewpoints of various historical events and example cases. It changed the way I look at things, which is high praise to give any book (especially one that is meant to do just that). I definitely recommend the read, even if it is only to get why I keep saying that stuff is because of cognitive dissonance.



















p.s. Hurray for cheap books!

Brooklyn Superhero Supply

The Brooklyn Superhero Supply store is really a front for this underground lair of infamy. Click here to see a flicker page with real photos of the place. There is a Q&A about it here. Also, the 826NYC Superhero Annex in the Williamsburgh Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library houses back issues of the Williamsburgh Satellite (Brooklyn's oldest newspaper reporting on superhero activity) , geographical indices of good and evil, secret identity relocation system updates, and the latest in public service announcements for local superheroes.