Here We Go...

For those of you that don't know, I live in Florida. Specifically, I live near Tampa - so right now life is getting a lot more difficult.

That's because the Steelers and Cardinals are in town for the Super Bowl.

And, amidst all this chaos, amusingly, I open my Google Reader this morning to see headlines like this: "Football Players Are Not The Only Ones Who Get Hurt On Super Bowl Sunday". The claim? The players are hardly the most at-risk on Sunday. The Fans are really the ones who are getting hurt - literally.

Apparently, hospitals in the area are having to brace themselves for all kinds of Super injuries.

Obviously, the most pressing concern for police and medical crews are all the damned drunks. Studies like this one have found that average number of fatalites involving alcohol are up to 41% higher on Super Sunday, and it's worse in the losing team's home city. That's a bigger increase in deaths than New Year's Eve. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) found that during 2007, around 32% of all traffic fatalities were alcohol-related. However on Super Bowl Sunday XLII, the number of traffic fatals where the driver had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of .08 or higher jumped to 48%.

Other studies have linked big sporting events to increases in heart attacks and medical emergencies. Apparently, some people are just REALLY excited their team's playing. People also get brought in for a whole myriad of random, freak injuries like choking in chicken wings and broken fingers from high-fiving.

But hey, there's a positive note to all this: apparently, if your team makes the playoffs or the championships, suicide rates in your area drop.

Personally, I think I might have a heart attack just trying to find cheap seats so my dearest Barry, a HUGE fan, can see his dearest win their 6^th ring.

Well, anyways, have a good weekend everyone. And, just for Barry...

HERE WE GO, STEELERS!

What's in a name?

We all feel bad for those poor kids whose parents have some sick sense of humor - you know, like poor little Talula does the Hula from Hawaii or Adolf. But new research suggests there might be even more to it. Male teens with unpopular names are more likely to commit crime, regardless of race.

A new study in the journal Social Science Quarterly compared the first names of juvenile delinquents to other teens in the population. The names were given a Popularity-Name Index (PNI) based on how frequently that name was chosen by the population - a kid named Michael, for example, had a high PNI while Pilot Inspektor would only have a PNI of 0. They then correlated the PNI with the level of crime committed, and found strong results.

Juvenile males with unpopular names were more likely to commit crime. Increases from 0 to 100 PNI increase the likelihood of crime by 36.7%. While some might interject and say that many minority or ethnic names would score low on the PNI, the key and interesting point is that this trend was regardless of race - it's a lot stronger, in fact, in whites (36.8% increase from 0-100 PNI versus 19.2% from 0-100 for blacks). Unpopular names were correlated with lower socioeconomic status and one-parent households, but I wouldn't be so sure that this explains everything. The differences in probability of these factors between a PNI of 0 and one of 100 are small - about 6% more likely to live with both parents if you've got a popular name. And the county of residence's average per-capita income increases only $800 from 0 to 100 PNI - which isn't that much. Though, to be fair, we would have to look at the individual household's income to really judge how socioeconomic status is related. Anecdotally, plenty of rich, two-parent households name their kids strange things - just look at Celebrities.

It seems likely that having a truly strange name has a negative impact on a child's upbringing, and family situation and economic status exacerbate the issue. While all kids with weird names get the ridicule, those with less than fortunate family situations would have less support to draw on to help deal with the situation, and would thus feel even more outcast. Without a support system, it's only logical that these children would then be more likely to act out or turn to violence or crime to deal with their situations. Other studies have found, for example, that having a strange name reduces the likelihood of getting a call-back after a job interview, so there is reason to believe it really is all in a name.

So if you're going to have children, you might want to think twice about naming your son Kal-el. While a unique, interesting name might be fun for you, it might have a negative impact on your child's well being. Perhaps you should stick to something popular for your area. Or, at least, try and avoid Blue Angel or Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. I mean, really- where do people come up with this stuff?

David E. Kalist, Daniel Y. Lee (2009). First Names and Crime: Does Unpopularity Spell Trouble? Social Science Quarterly, 90 (1), 39-49 DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2009.00601.x

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite

What could be more sci-fi than a case of replacing body parts? Sure, we might figure to do it with machines or cloning instead of another species, but fish don't get that luxury. Snappers have a wonderful parasite that works with them, to a point, to replace a part of their bodies.

Of course, the parasite - a crustacean (Cymothoa exigua) - first causes the part it's replacing to die - so it's not exactly a voluntary procedure. And what part does this lovely parasite replace?

The tongue.

Cymothoa exigua enters the fish's mouth through the gills and latches on to the base of the tongue. From there, it feeds on the blood supply. As the blood is taken in by the parasite instead of the tongue, the muscle eventually atrophies and dies. The loss of a tongue could be a huge detriment to the fish, making it much less fit, unable to handle its food properly, and possibly even die. Of course, a dead host is no good to a fully-grown parasite, as it means a the food stops coming. So Cymothoa has evolved a truly amazing behavior: it acts like the fish's tongue. The fish can control the parasite just like it would its own organ, and thus the crustacean can live and feed off of its host's blood and mucus as long as it lives.

It seems like a nice gesture by the parasite, replacing a lost organ and all. That is, until you think about the fact that the old tongue was totally fine to begin with...

We might use the phrase "cat got your tongue?" when talking to other people, but if we're talking to a fish, " Cymothoa got your tongue?" might be more appropriate.

New Nerd Gear!

OK, I couldn't help myself. I see all these super-special bloggers making their own gear, and I want some too!

So, I cafepressed.

Here's the designs available, if you need a nerdy gift:

Definitely A Nerd (example, tote bag)


I always wanted one, so FINALLY, here's the "I am Statistically Significant!" shirt:


And, of course, Observations of a Nerd!

Weekly dose of cute

This week's cute is a newborn Sifaka (Propithecus coronatus) named Tahina from a French Zoo. She's a beautiful baby girl, whose name means "needs to be protected."




In the wild, this little girl would be carried in her mother's mouth until she was strong enough to hold onto her fur by herself. Devoid of a mother, the little lemur was given a teddy to cling to. Like all lemur species, Sifakas are found only on Madagascar, and are on the verge of extinction. This little girl is one of only 17 in captivity, and her species natural habitat is shrinking every day. The IUCN Red List states the wild population may have decreased by 50% in the past 30 years, and is still decreasing. So this little girl is a beacon of hope for captive breeding programs aiming to boost population numbers - and she definitely needs our protection.

Virally-induced weight gain and a New Collaboration.

Hey there all,

I've been asked to team up with a cool crew of people and chip in some stories at a site called NutritionWonderland.Com. It's a new site (launching in the next week or two, so it's not even completely ready yet) that wants to bring the science back into nutrition. The goal is to blend in-depth science reporting with how it directly relates to diet and its impacts on health. In the end, the reader will not only learn about the latest breakthroughs in health science, but how it impacts them and their diet. It's a very cool idea.

Well, I figure - oh, what the heck? As if two blogs and a full time job isn't enough, I'll write some stuff for them, too! So if you're interested in health science and nutrition you should check it out. My first little piece about a viral cause for obesity (READ IT!!! READ!!!) is already up on the site, and I'll be attempting to find some really interesting studies that relate to health and nutrition to post once a week or so. Enjoy!


The study I wrote about, FYI: Miloni A. Rathod, Pamela M. Rogers, Sharada D. Vangipuram, Emily J. McAllister, Nikhil V. Dhurandhar (2009). Adipogenic Cascade Can Be Induced Without Adipogenic Media by a Human Adenovirus Obesity DOI: 10.1038/oby.2008.630

Something Smells Funny.

Ok, the consistent reader of this blog can't help but notice that I am a sucker when it comes to unique studies about human relationships and the trappings that go with them. The biological basis and interaction with behavior is simply fascinating to me. This is why I had to report on a study that showed even without knowing it, women's brains picked up on the smell of arousal in men's sweat. And, following that vein, I can't help but write about a new olfactory study, which found that a woman's passion for her man affects her ability to identify the smell of other men in her life.

Biologically speaking, love is seen as a means of cementing a relationship so that the couple is able to mate and produce healthy, well-cared for offspring. Love as a means of keeping a couple together might work via two possible mechanisms. The first is simply an increased connection that person. Thus, we would expect, that those in love might release hormones or have other biological changes which promote dependency, trust and happiness. The fact that feelings of love correlate to releases of dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine (which stimulate pleasure and reward centers in the brain) supports this mechanism. However, love could act to maintain a relationship by another pathway. It could function to make other partners less desirable, thus decreasing the urge to mate with someone else. It's this mechanism that the study examined.

The nose knows.

Humans are remarkably capable of identifying the sweat of people who they interact with on a regular basis. That same sweat also functions to make a man seem hotter and turns women on. Women are even able to identify men with different immune genes simply based on the smell of their sweat, something that makes men more attractive. So researchers from the University of Pennsylvania sought to determine if smelling is affected by levels of passion and love in a relationship. If scent is key in both attraction and recognition, being less able to recognize sweat smells might decrease the chance of a woman wanting other guys.

So they had women take a survey to determine their level of passion for their partners. They then had the partners, a close male friend, and a close female friend all sleep for one week in t-shirts with special absorbent patches sewn to the armpits. They then tested the women's ability to identify their partner's smell. On average, the women could - 5.2 out of 7 tries they picked out their man. They also had no difficulty identifying the smell of their female friend. But when the women tried to identify their male friend, their level of passion in their relationship had an inhibitory effect - those that were really in love couldn't do it while those that were feeling less amorous had less trouble. Thus the love they have for their partner is somehow biologically inhibiting the women's ability to recognize the smell of other men.

The researchers are now looking directly at the women's brains while they sniff the different smells. Preliminary results show that while sniffing the sweat of friends, the areas of the brain responsible for recalling information light up, whereas smelling strangers activates centers associated with fear. Most interestingly, smelling lovers activates pleasure centers. So scent might function in both drawing a person closer to their partner and reducing the attractiveness of others.

In other words, it might do you some good to lay off the cologne and get a little sweaty around your girl, though I wouldn't go too overboard. Her smelling your B.O. a little bit more might just keep her interested and help deter her nose from following other scents, which in turn might deter her eyes from wandering to other guys. If you shower constantly or completely distort your smell with the cologne and aftershave usage of a preteen boy at a coed dance, you might just find her nose isn't the only part of her that ends up where it doesn't belong.

J LUNDSTROM, M JONESGOTMAN (2008). Romantic love modulates women's identification of men's body odors Hormones and Behavior DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2008.11.009

One step closer to growing organs

Japanese scientists announced on Jan 22^nd that they had made a huge breakthrough in fabricating human organs. Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology successfully created a doll made of living cells.

The doll is about 1-inch tall and 5 mm wide, and is made from fully functioning cells. Scientists first created a mould for the doll's shape, then seeded it with 100,000 cell capsules - tiny 0.1 mm balls of collagen coated with cells which then were allowed to grow. The final result is a fully living structure that retains the cellular abilities for at least a day when suspended in culture media. I didn't get a great translation, but think liver cells were used to create the doll.

According to principal investigator Shoji Takeuchi, the next step is to combine cell types and create more complex designs. The team hopes that this technology will eventually be able to create complex organs for human transplants and regenerative medicine.

Cohabiting with females boosts male fertility

How many times have you heard a guy say "Women - can't live with them, can't live without them." Well, they just might be onto something. At least kind of. You see, living with a woman might just make you fertile longer. New research published in Biology of Reproduction has found that male mice stay reproductively active longer if they live with a female mouse than if they live alone.

The study, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, sought to see whether living with a female mouse had any affect on a male mouse's fertility as he aged. To do this, male mice were either housed with a female mouse continuously or isolated, given access to a virgin female only at given time intervals to prove fertility (sounds terrible to you guys, I'm sure). They also looked into factors of fertility like testes size and abnormal spermatogenesis at each time point.

They found that male mice which were housed with females were fertile a whopping 20% longer than the isolated males. Also, histological abnormal spermatogenesis appeared earlier in the isolated males, giving a possible mechanism to their sooner decrease in fertility. Interestingly enough, once a mouse started to decline in fertility, the rate at which he became infertile was the same between the two treatments, suggesting that once whatever processes by which a mouse loses fertility begin, they have a set time course.

What does this mean for us? If you want to put off having kids, perhaps having a girlfriend or wife live with you throughout your 20s and 30s will let you have kids later on. Or, conversely, if you live single and alone through those years, you might have a bit more trouble impregnating someone when you're older. It also may explain why males, who some might argue evolutionarily have an advantage by staying single and ready to mingle, form long-term bonds with females. It's possible that the added reproductive benefits of living with the same woman outweigh the costs - while sleeping with different ones and staying a bachelor gets you a few more kids while you're young, the added years of fertility give you more. Albeit that's a bit of a reach (and would require a lot more support), it's possible.

Now, the astute reader would point out at this juncture that the research was in mice, not humans. True, true. But there is the possibility, at least, that this effect could be true for other mammals, including us. Perhaps the most useful application if this phenomena is in other species, however, won't be in our own mating strategies but in the livestock and other breeding industries. Housing a prize stud horse with a nice female might give him a longer reproductive lifespan, meaning a lot more cha-ching for his owner. Or keeping endangered zoo animals with opposite-sexed partners might give struggling population breeding programs an extra boost.

In any case, this new finding might just open up some interesting new studies on the effects of cohabitation on reproduction, and perhaps what pathways this might occur by. And as always, if it's about sex, I'll probably be interested in their findings. I just can't seem to pull myself away from all this reproductive biology. I don't have my mind in the gutter - I swear.


J. A. Schmidt, J. M. Oatley, R. L. Brinster (2009). Female Mice Delay Reproductive Aging in Males Biology of Reproduction DOI: 10.1095/biolreprod.108.073619

Of course men have it easy.

Everyone knows that dieting and losing weight is hard, especially for women. It's like our bodies are hard-wired to fail - and, perhaps they are. At least that is one interpretation of a new study coming out of the Brookhaven National Laboratory this week, set to be published in PNAS shortly.

The researchers looked at the PET scans of men and women after 20 hours of fasting at rest, when looking, smelling, and drooling over their favorite food, and when that food is presented to them but they are told not to think about it. All of the subjects reported feeling less hungry for the food when they tried not to think about it, but their brains told a different story.

The scans to the right show the differences in brain activity between the conditions of wanting the food and wanting the food but forcing themselves to think about something else. The top row is the women, and the scans aren't colored because there was no difference between the conditions. Whether they tried to distract themselves or not, their brains activated the same areas involved in the emotional regulation, conditioning, and motivation to eat. The second row, instead, are the men's scans - the blue areas are parts of the brain which were significantly less active when forcing themselves not to think about the food. The third row compares the women and the men, with the orange areas indicating where men showed decreases in brain activity that the women didn't.

In other words, when the men tried not to think about food, they succeeded in changing their brain chemistry and actually decreased their desire for it, while the women didn't. This might explain why it always seems easier for guys to lose weight - when they put their mind to it, it listens. This study is the first that has found gender-specific differences in the connection (or lack thereof) between emotion state and brain activity.

“The finding of a lack of response to inhibition in women is consistent with behavioral studies showing that women have a higher tendency than men to overeat when presented with palatable food or under emotional distress... This decreased inhibitory control in women could be a major factor contributing to the observed differences in the prevalence rates of obesity and eating disorders such as binge eating between the genders, and may also underlie women’s lower success in losing weight while dieting when compared with men," said lead author Gene-Jack Wang in the lab's press release.

Researchers think that the differences found may be due to sex hormones like estrogen, which have already been shown to affect weight, fat distribution, and even caloric intake. Other molecules that regulate eating behavior might also be involved, and clearly further research into this effect is needed.

In the meantime, we women can honestly complain that it's not our fault we can't shed those holiday pounds. After all, you boys have it easy - your brains actually forget about food when you want them to. Stupid men... why must women always have the short end of the stick?

PS I'll post the link to the article when it gets published...

Like the Weekly Doses?

If you're a fan of once-a-week info bites like my Sci-Fi Parasites or Doses of Cute, you should check out Biochemical Soul's new Adaptation of the week. It's sure to be a great new weekly digest of adaptations at their finest!

What happens when microbiologists are artists, too.

Here's a nice San Diego beach scene, made by swabbing fluorescent bacteria on a culture plate:



Now that is just cool. Here's some nerdy-background info on the artwork: the scene, by Nathan Shaner (photo: Paul Steinbach) is made from eight different colors of bacterial colonies expressing variations of the GFP and red-fluorescent coral protein dsRed. It was made in the lab of Roger Tsien, who as you might know received the Nobel Prize for his work with GFP.

Weekly Dose of Cute

What do you do when you've lost your mom?

... Find the next closest thing.


c/o www.dailymail.co.uk, click to link to story

Which, in the case of hedgehogs, is apparently a cleaning brush. These little youngsters are reportedly attracted to the bristles because they smelled like their outdoor home and feel like mom should.

I admit, I might be partial to this story because I had hedgehogs as pets as a kid. They're marvelously wonderful animals. Sure, they smell, but so does a ferret - and their little piggy noses make them so much cuter than those little weasels.

Oestradiol makes women hot and hard to keep

The estrogen hormone oestradiol is associated with just about every aspect of female beauty. As well as serving as a growth hormone for female reproductive organs, it's associated with having a symmetrical face, large breasts and a low waist-to-hip ratio. Now, the hormone is credited with one more association: it makes women serial monogamists.

Her relationships explained
by her body cheimstry?

For those who may not have heard of this term, let me explain. A serial monogamist is a person who has sequential relationships, and who tends not to spend much time alone in between partners. While they make what seems to be a lasting commitment to each person, they tend to be superficial, get bored of their significant others easily, and find a new one every so often.

Well, new research has linked oetradiol levels to this kind of relationship behavior.

University of Texas researchers polled women about their personal and sexual behaviors and compared their responses to their saliva oestradiol levels. They also took pictures of the women for an independent analysis of beauty. They found that while the high-oestradiol women were more attractive than their counterparts (by the women's self opinion and independent judges), they also had significantly lower levels of satisfaction with and commitment to their parters and a greater likelihood of infidelity.

Specifically, the women were more likely to have serious affairs, but not more likely to have brief sexual encounters. So they weren't simply more sexually active - they were picky, too. They preferred long-term commitments but were less satisfied by them. So women with high oestradiol levels are classic serial monogomists. This is strong evidence that physiological mechanisms may be a much larger part of mating behaviors and strategies than previously assumed.

This means that your role models may have less to do with how you act in relationships than you might think, at least if you're a woman. But there's one more thing that makes this study very interesting. A synthetic form of oestradiol, called ethinylestradiol, is a major component of hormonal contraceptives, which many women who aren't married but are in relationships take so they can have all the fun of condom-free sex without the risk of getting pregnant. Now, if women are taking this hormone every day, how much is it affecting their behavior? Are the ingested levels enough to make a difference? Are birth control pills changing modern women's mating strategies? Or, more bluntly, is your girlfriend's birth control making her more likely to cheat on you?

Just some food for thought...

Kristina M. Durante, Norman P. Li (2009). Oestradiol level and opportunistic mating in women Biology Letters, -1 (-1), -1--1 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0709

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite

Most parasites are really, really small. Especially the ones that mess with brains - they tend to be able to fit in them. But not all parasites that can do some fun jedi mind tricks are so itsy-bitsy. Take, for example, the Rhizocephalans - the parasitic barnacles.

Yes, I did just say parasitic barnacle. Although you probably wouldn't recognize it as a barnacle when it's an adult. The adult parasites look like a sac where a female crab would have eggs. It's classified as a barnacle, however, due to its larval forms, specifically the cypris larvae (left), which neatly place it in the class Cirripedia.

The barnacle's strategy is simple. Find a crab. Stop her from shedding so she can't get rid of you. Tap into her systems and get comfortable. Grow. Sterilize her, so nothing competes for your living space. As you get too big to fit inside, pretend to be an eggsac. Have her bathe you in water, take gentle care of you, and feed you nutrients because she thinks she's pregnant. She'll even help you spread your larvae like they're her own eggs by fanning them into the water. Enjoy the easy life.

However, there is an obvious problem. Not every crab is female, and thus predisposed to tending its eggs. So what does the parasite do when it accidentally infects a male crab instead? Well, it's simple, really. It makes it act like a woman.

That's right - the parasite turns male crabs into transvestites.

By altering hormones in the male crab's neurophysiology, it causes the male crab to act like a female one. Its abdomen flattens and widens, and it starts taking on the behavioral traits of a pregnant female. The male goes through the same process of nurturing and caring for its wee little parasite babies that the female would. The big boy will continue to love, adore and feed its little parasite baby until he dies, just like a woman would.

Only recently have these barnacles surfaced as truly effective and amazing examples of parasitism. They've been found just about everywhere, from freshwater to deep oceans, even deep-sea thermal vents, making them exceptionally successful parasites. Even still, their exact mechanism for converting male crabs into female ones is largely unknown. Clearly hormones and chemical signals are involved, but exactly which and how the parasite causes their release is uncertain.

Just imagine if we could make men think they're pregnant so effectively. For one, we'd get so much less bitching about our neurotic hormone imbalances and crazy pregnant lady behavior. They'd be more nurturing, sensitive, loving, loyal... Of course, I think we would want to do so in a way that doesn't make them infertile. You know, just a temporary fix to shut them up. I mean, finally we wouldn't have to say "You just don't understand what I'm going through!"- because, of course, they would.

Hell, I think it sounds like a great idea. But that could just be me. I guess, perhaps, we should just leave the master chemical manipulation to those that are qualified - the parasites. Just be glad the Rhizocephalans haven't figured out how to infect humans...yet.

Here's to finding what you're searching for!

So, every once in awhile I check my feedburner stats, to see what kind of stuff attracts people to my site. You know, where people link to me from, etc. Well, I usually have a few from random google searches like "science nerd" or "tiger" (something about my Tiger Wine post is apparently very popular with google search). Sometimes, though, it's just good to know a person found what they were looking for. Like this guy:


That's damn right, biatch. Another satisfied googler, I'm sure.

Sure, it's always Mom's fault.

Every kid blames their parents for all their bad habits. Parents are supposed to be your role models, your guides. So who doesn't try and get away with a "mom's X behavior when I was a kid made me like this" every once in awhile? Well, it turns out you might get to pile one more on poor mom's shoulders. Drink a little too much, a little too often? Find yourself naked in unfamiliar places with no idea how you got there? Think that beer is a "soft drink" because it's less than 20% alcohol by volume? Well, it's possible your boozing behavior is your mother's fault. That's because a new study out of the State University of New York has found that the progeny of rats given alcohol while pregnant are drawn to intoxicated peers and the smell of alcohol as juveniles.

Breeding Boozers?

That's right - if mom slipped even once while carrying you, it's possible that she gave you a predilection to alcoholism.

The basic idea is that as little fetuses in our mothers wombs, we observe and learn about our environments by chemical stimulus, particularly odors. This is helpful if the mother eats a healthy diet. The baby's brain remembers the compounds in healthy foods, and until adulthood is drawn to their smell. It makes it a whole lot faster to teach a child what should be eaten if its already developed a desire or a "nose" for those things. However, have a night of boozing or doing drugs while carrying a baby, and the baby gets those odors in its head.

The idea that a fetus can recall and be drawn to odor stimuli from what its mother ingests is already well-supported. So the question then becomes does this apply to alcohol as it does to other food odors, and what are the consequences of this behavior?

The researchers from New York say yes, and the consequences are steep. They gave pregnant rats diets supplemented with ethanol or water, then tested their kids when they were juveniles and adults. They either exposed the babies to alcohol once, in the womb or as juveniles, or twice, once at both ages. Juvenile rats that had fetal exposure to alcohol were more likely to follow intoxicated peers and were more drawn to the smell of ethanol than their water-fed counterparts. Those that then got re-exposed as adolescents subsequently showed even higher affinity for alcohol, and this effect persisted to adulthood in female rats. In other words, reinforcement of that gestational exposure increased alcoholic tendencies in teenagers, and the effect can even last a lifetime.

So what does this mean for us? For one, as if it wasn't clear already, drinking while pregnant is a really, really bad idea. Not only might it harm your baby directly (as in birth defects), it might lead them to be at risk of alcoholism and alcohol abuse. Pre-natal exposure makes juveniles more attracted to alcohol and more likely to pay attention to peers that are drinking, leading to more exposure and more reinforcement of unsafe behaviors. But moreover, keeping adolescents away from alcohol also helps tone down their behavior as adults, even if you did slip up during pregnancy, so parenting is also key for 'at risk' teens.

And, of course, if you are a heavy drinker, you might be able to pin it all on Mom. I mean, is she sure she didn't have a couple glasses of wine while you were developing? I bet it's all her fault.


Amber M. Eade, Paul R. Sheehe, Juan C. Molina, Norman E. Spear, Lisa M. Youngentob, Steven L. Youngentob (2009). The consequence of fetal ethanol exposure and adolescent odor re-exposure on the response to ethanol odor in adolescent and adult rats Behavioral and Brain Functions DOI: 10.1186/1744-9081-5-3

Oi! I've been Tagged!!

Rose Ragai over at MY LIFE IS MY CHOICE has tagged me a game of tag!

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random and/or revealing things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your post entry is up on your site.


6 Random Things
1. In high school, I took AP Physics instead of AP Bio, and I went into my college career planning to double major in Marine Biology and Physics. Clearly, the second one didn't last too long. However, I did pass out of the physics requirements for my Bio major, so I guess it wasn't all for naught.

2. I would give just about anything to meet three people: Tom Brady*, John Mayer, and Dave Salmoni. And by "just about anything", I mean, like, a kidney. Especially if Dave Salmoni came with a handful of big cats, John Mayer played 'Comfortable' and 'Slow Dancing In A Burning Room', and Tom Brady brought along Wes Welker.

3. I am somewhat obsessed with the show Big Bang Theory. I think it is by far the best show on television. Sure, I love House and Lost, but come on. It's a show entirely about nerds in all their glorified nerdiness. There is simply nothing that can compare.

4. I'm really, frighteningly good at Hula Hooping on the Wii Fit. It's a sight to see.

5. I have a brother. He's 14 months older than me, and a programmer in California. He's the smartest guy I know. However, I graduated college 1 month before him. Of course, he makes at least three times as much as I do, so I don't think I won any prizes by beating him to the punch.

6. I have never broken a bone (knock on wood!!). And considering I used to wander around the woods in Vermont, loved climbing trees to ridiculous heights, and as a child generally treated my body like I could replace it easily, that's quite a feat.


Here Are My 6 Tag Links, pulled from my lovely batch of 'Followers' (see? There are reasons to follow me.)

1. The Girl Next Door

2. My Growing Passion

3. Pleiotropy

4.The Fuzzy Biologist

5. A Compound A Day

6. Much Ado About Nothing

So that's about it. You're not required to play along, but I always find it fun. Cheers!

*11-5 and no Playoffs? And the Chargers get in with 8-8?! That's such crap!!

Weekly Dose of Cute

Hee hee! I am such a sucker for baby animals...
Especially duck-ducks! ( ;> to Barry)


c/o http://www.dailymail.co.uk last year (click picture to link to story)

These little tykes were somehow swept away from their mother and were facing a terrible death at sea, until, lucky for them, a passing canoeist spotted them, picked them up, and brought them home to nurse back to health.

Ways to pass time...

Thanks to Allie, I've found a bunch of new ways to waste time, all thanks to Sporcle.

Can you remember all 20 of the standard amino acids? (yup. Got all 20. Cheating, though, that they give you the 3-letter and 1-letter abbreviations. Makes it too easy... though spelling them right is hard!)

How about the entire periodic table? (67. Eh.)

The Geological Timescale? (I'm sorry Prof. Brooks! I totally failed this one... I am not worthy...)

Or maybe, if you're not as scientifically inclined, you want to try The 32 NFL teams or the U.S. Presidents. Does it say something bad about me that I can name all 32 NFL teams and not even 1/2 of the US presidents?

Anyhow, they got a lot of them, and they're all wonderful, time-wasting fun.

When Kids Watch Too Much Discovery Channel

Gosh, I hope my kids are like this

Why play Tetris when you can do X?

Screw Tetris.

More and more research seems to be accumulating to support MDMA (or Ecstasy, to the street-wise reader) for the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

MDMA, or 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, is well-loved by drug enthusiasts for its experiential effects which include feelings of intimacy, lack of fear or anxiety, and, of course, the feeling of euphoria it is named for. It does this by increasing oxytocin in the brain, a hormone which is otherwise released after orgasm, dopamine, and 'stress hormones' like noradrenaline and cortisol. Though its mechanism isn't well understood, the drug appears to have high affinity for serotonin transporters, which are responsible for removing serotonin from synapses after its stimulation.

It's obvious why such a drug would be popular with the frisky youth who are looking to break out of social expectations and 'have a really good time'. What's not as clear is why it would be useful in treating PTSD.

Yet that is exactly what the non-profit research organization MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), has been claiming for years. MDMA had been used in psychotherapy in the earlier part of the 20th century, until it became illegal worldwide under the UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances. However, MAPS researchers believe that the drug should be legalized for pharmaceutical reasons, and the recent conclusion of a phase II clinical trial shows strong support for their position.

The study, presented as a poster at the 24th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies in Chicago, found that giving patients low doses of MDMA during psychotherapy significantly increased their likelihood of recovery from PTSD. 92% of patients who received a little E alongside good old fashioned therapy had clinically significant improvement in their conditions, whereas only 25% of those who received the placebo improved.

And, as far as they can tell, there were no lasting side effects. Patients did not seek out MDMA after treatment, and managed to move past their pain that six months of therapy and three months of previous drug treatment had failed to alleviate. Neuropsychological tests even showed that patients might have improved mental ability after treatment.

While the reasons behind its efficacy are unclear, scientists speculate that the increased feelings of trust and lack of anxiety make the therapy sessions more effective at dispelling the trauma that caused the PTSD.

The trial was small, and further testing is required to convince hard-minded anti-drug lords (who categorized the drug as "having no medical uses and a high potential for abuse ") to legalize the substance for therapeutic uses. But it's enough to convince some that MDMA is a useful agent. The Norwegian government has just decided to be the first to publicly fund further investigation into MDMA's usefulness, following upon the heels of MDMA research successes like this one. If is is approved for clinical use, the real question will be:

Why play Tetris to prevent PTSD when you can have a whole lot more fun tripping on a little hug-drug once you're diagnosed? I mean, Tetris is a great game, but come on - it's clear which one would be more fun.

You want me - I can smell it.

Most of us women can tell if a guy is 'into us'. We pick up on a vasy array of non-verbal cues, not the mention the ever-obvious verbal ones. But I wouldn't say I can smell sexual interest- would you? Probably not. But, as it turns out, women's brains can distinguish the difference between sweat from a man who is aroused and one that isn't, according to fresh research published in the Journal of Neuroscience

Is he hot or horny?
A woman's brain knows.

Scientists from Rice University used fMRI scans to take a look at women's brains while they processed four different smells. The first was sweat from aroused men. The second was sweat from the same men when not aroused. The third was a control with PSP, a sex hormone which heightens arousal in women, matched to previously found levels in aroused sweat. The last was a negative control with a neutral compound that is in sweat, PEA. They wanted to know if PSP was the major sexual olfactory cue in sweat or if there was more being produced by the horny boys.

To make the study truly neutral, the women weren't informed as to what they were smelling. And, interestingly, few described the smells as human or sweaty. Some even described them as 'floral'. None of the women figured out they were smelling the sweat of aroused versus non-aroused men.

Well, I guess I should say none of the women consciously figured that out. However, their brains told a different story.

The fMRI scans showed that the women's right orbitofrontal cortex and the right fusiform regions significantly responded to the sexual sweat compared with the PEA baseline, the neutral sweat or PSP. Also, the PSP (the hormone they thought might be the signal) did not produce the same stimulus. Thus something else in the sweat of aroused guys turned on a specific response in the women's brains.

In other words, women's brains know the difference between a guy that's hot and bothered and one that isn't, even if they don't know it consciously. It makes me wonder if they'll soon be producing colognes that are designed to get a woman turned on - neurally, that is (none of this supposed pheromone crap). I mean, that's gotta be way better than a pick up line...

Since I went there, here's one for you to take home - it's my personal favorite:

"You know, the good thing about being a scientist is that I'm very good at mixing fluids."

W. Zhou, D. Chen (2008). Encoding Human Sexual Chemosensory Cues in the Orbitofrontal and Fusiform Cortices Journal of Neuroscience, 28 (53), 14416-14421 DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3148-08.2008

How to get the freshest seafood in town...

Look at the guilt in her eyes...

I love it when animal ingenuity triumphs over human expectations.

One very happy, hungry, and ingenious harbor seal found its way into a state fish hatchery sometime Monday night and had a ball of a time snacking to its heart's content until a hatchery worker discovered its whereabouts on Tuesday morning. The seal was found frolicking in the holding tanks, and didn't exactly go quietly when the muscle from the Cape Cod Stranding Network removed her from her ill-gotten gains.

The kicker is that the hatchery is two miles inland - meaning the seal successfully waddled for a thousand feet or so without being noticed to commit its mischief. The supposed route might have included utilizing a tunnel to go under a major road and sneaking across a mini-golf course unseen.

The female seal was in good health, and the Cape Cod Stranding Network was sure to tag her before releasing her back into the sea. Click on the photo to see the Cape Cod Time's photo gallery of the event.

Lucky for this seal, she decided to go after a US hatchery.

Harbor seals commonly winter around Cape Cod, and have been often targeted by fisheries, who claim they "compete" for food resources. In Canada and the UK, it's legal to shoot harbor seals to protect fisheries or fish farms, and in the UK such shooting doesn't have to be reported under the "Fisheries Defence Clause" of the Conservation of Seals Act. Conservationists estimate that thousands may be shot in Scotland fisheries every year.

Seals are so blamed for reduced fish stocks that culls are requested, despite the fact that killing seals has not been shown to effectively raise fish populations because of the complexity of the marine food web. Many populations are only now recovering from culling in the 1970s.

So while the story is funny and entertaining, the sad note is that many ingenious seals are probably killed every year for similar behavior in their northern habitats.

Tetris good for more than wasting time

Ok, I simply had to post about this new study from PLoS ONE because my boyfriend, Barry, absolutely loves the game Tetris. Anyhow, new research has found that Tetris can help treat PTSD flashbacks, which is pretty cool for a really old, really simple video game.

Read the rest of this post!

Here's how it works. Your brain has limited resources and capacity. In other words, your brain can only process, remember and manage so much input at a time. When you see an image or perform a mental task, you have to put energy into it and resources. After witnessing a traumatic incident, part of your brain is allocating resources to that image, causing it to later reappear in flashbacks. So, hypothetically, if you could force that part of the brain to focus on something else, the flashbacks would lessen or completely stop.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Finding the right activity which can act as a 'cognative vaccine' for such events is not easy. After all, it has to be involved and stimulating enough to warrant the brain power allocated to the stressful event. And anyone who has had even a glimpse of the kind of stressful event that can cause PTSD knows that "forgettting" the trauma and focusing on something else isn't that easy.

Currently, vivid flashbacks are treated with psychiatry and drugs. However, the counseling often only occurs after a significant buildup of symptoms (like flashbacks) and the drugs don't just help rid you of flashbacks - they destroy your memory of the event all together. So if, say, you need to testify in court, you might have a problem. Some current methods of treatment have even been shown to worsen symptoms.

Researchers from Oxford may have found a better way. They say that since flashbacks are sensory-perceptual, visuospatial mental images that tend to implant in memory somewhere between 1-6 hours after an event, you can disrupt them from ever forming by providing other sensory-perceptual, visuospatial mental images during that time. Their choice? Tetris.

Tetris has been shown to occupy much of the same kind of memory that a flashback does. People even seem to 'relive' intense moments of Tetris play much later on - which, of course, I can totally vouch for. Who hasn't gone over and over 'if only I'd rotated that piece that way!'?

So the researchers exposed people to a violent film depicting death and injury, then had them play Tetris or just sit there. Afterwards, they sat alone for 10 minutes, and reported any flashbacks to the film. Tetris, it turned out, significantly reduced the number of flashbacks. The subjects continued reporting flashbacks over a week long period, and the Tetris players continued to experience fewer flashbacks. Later, when subjects were tested on the film, both groups performed equally, so Tetris didn't impair voluntary memory of the trauma, just involuntary.

Using this kind of 'cognitive vaccine' could reduce PTSD from all kinds of traumatic events, from fires to rape. Although, imagine, you walk out of a burning building, sit down, and the emergency worker hands you a DS to play for a few minutes before you're interviewed about the scene. It seems almost ridiculous, but it could really help a lot of people. Who'd have thought Tetris was so useful for anything other than wasting time?

Emily A. Holmes, Ella L. James, Thomas Coode-Bate, Catherine Deeprose (2009). Can Playing the Computer Game “Tetris” Reduce the Build-Up of Flashbacks for Trauma? A Proposal from Cognitive Science PLoS ONE, 4 (1) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004153

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite

Many parasites alter their hosts behavior by small manipulations in the brain that go largely unnoticed by the host until its eaten by another. But not all use so much finesse. This week's parasite is probably the rudest as far as mechanisms go - luckily, their hosts are cockroaches, so we don't hold it against them.

I'm talking about the Emerald Cockroach Wasp. As with many parasitic wasps, it needs to inject its eggs into the host to incubate. When the eggs hatch, they'll feed on the host, cocoon, and emerge adult wasps. But most parasitic wasps paralyze their hosts and drag the bodies somewhere to feed the soon-to-be-born young. Such forethought would be considerate compared to the behavior of the Emerald Cockroach Wasp.

You see, the Emerald Cockroach Wasp is rather small compared to most parasitic wasps, and can't really "drag" its victim anywhere. Instead of paralyzing the cockroach, the wasp injects venom into its host cockroach which cause the insect to lose its front limbs (specifics, here). This causes the roach to bow head down, exposing its ganglion. The wasp then stings again, aiming for the brain. It was found in 2007 that the venom actually blocks the neurotransmitter octopamine. This effect is so precise that the cockroach's survival instincts are turned off, but its motor capabilities (like walking) are left unimpaired. After the initial paralysis is over and the roach has been essentially zombified, the wasp chews off parts of the roach's antennae and uses them like a leash to lead the roach to a burrow. It then fills the backside of the roach with eggs and seals them both in.

The roach, still alive (as roaches can live for a long time without eating), simply rests with no desire to escape, until the larvae hatch. The larvae then begin eating the hosts organs, one by one in a systematic manner that keeps it alive the longest, so that the fresh fuel lasts long enough for the larvae to form a cocoon. Only then does the roach, in a totally wasted state, have the bliss of death.

Interestingly enough, the Emerald Cockroach wasp was introduced to Hawaii as an attempt to biocontrol the cockroach population. Unfortunately, the wasps are highly territorial and need very few cockroaches to sustain themselves, so the attempt was ineffective.

Anyhow, here's a little video I found of the behavior...



For more info, check out the links embedded or this article:
R GAL, F LIBERSAT (2008). A Parasitoid Wasp Manipulates the Drive for Walking of Its Cockroach Prey Current Biology, 18 (12), 877-882 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2008.04.076

Girl's aren't absolute evil.

You may have seen the proof before. Roughly speaking, it goes like this:

girls = time x money (because girls are time and money*)

time = money (proverbial cliche) therefore:

girls = money² Then, since

money = evil^1/2 (generally credited to The Bible, I Timothy 6:10), THEREFORE:

girls =( evil^1/2)², or girls = |evil|

However, it has recently come to my attention that the assumption that "money = evil" may not be entirely accurate. Indeed, according to Chinese proverb:

time > money

Subsituting this into the proof, we find that girls are not, in fact, the root of all evil, but something slightly more, since you can't simple assume that

time x money = money².

So there. Take that.

*For the moment, I'll ignore the fact that "and" is used in mathematical terminology to represent "+", not "x"... which means girls are 2(evil^1/2).

Open Lab '08 Announced!

Well, the time has come folks - The Open Laboratory 2008 winners have been announced. The Open Laboratory is a publication of the best of scientific blogging throughout the year. After a long and arduous process, the judges have narrowed the extensive list of entries down to a mere 50 blog posts to publish. And guess what?

OBSERVATIONS OF A NERD MADE THE CUT!!

That's right! My post, Having some fun with evolution is to be published among the best of them. Not to be too nerdy, but...

W00t!

So I guess the year isn't starting off too badly over here. Happy 2009 and cheers to another year of science and blogging!

Weekly Dose of Cute

A spaniel adopted a litter of orphaned baby bunnies.



Click the picture above to see a video of the ridiculous cuteness.

My Definition of Cool Eco-Art

OK, so I wouldn't encourage everyone to do this, because then we'd pollute our oceans too much, but this guy's art is really interesting. The artist, Jason de Caires Taylor, uses sculptures to create artificial reefs. The hopes? To "promote hope and recovery, and underline our need to understand and protect the natural world."

Of course, I have to wonder if in a thousand years or something, with coral all over them, how will they look? And, if you can still see the human features, isn't some poor diver going to get really, really freaked out? Heck, even knowing their just art, I might get freaked out if I dove and looked at some of these.


The TamCC Project. Depth: 2 m. Grenada, West Indies.


Vicissitudes. Depth: 4.5 m. Grenada, West Indies


Vicissitudes. Depth: 4.5 m. Grenada, West Indies.


The Lost Correspondent. Depth: 7m. Grenada, West Indies.


Grace Reef. Depth: 4.2 m. Grenada, West Indies.


Grace Reef. Depth: 4.2 m. Grenada, West Indies.

Anyhow, I just thought the art was very cool marine-oriented. Finally, someone promoting marine life with art!

You can't make this stuff up.

I'm often reminded of what Rich Cook said about the nature of the universe. Sure, he wrote about programming, but the principle stands in all fields.

Here are a few perfect examples.

#1. A man has fled the country (or "willingly relocated to south america to help the poor") due to legal issues with his plastic surgery practice. Sure, that sounds normal enough, until you hear the issue: he was turning human fat into biodiesel (which, apparently, is against the law in California - something about medical waste and fueling vehicles). The Beverly Hills doctor, one Craig Alan Bittner, claimed his patients knew about and supported his practice of turning their fat into biofuel for his SUV.

Can you smell the Gasoline?

A quote from his blog (lipodiesel.com, now shut down):

“My patients universally love the idea of converting their unwanted fat into fuel... Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly, but they get to take part in saving the Earth.”

While I commend his efforts to be eco-friendly, he definitely crossed a line somewhere. Though the 1996 report to the National Biodiesel Board did say that animal fat was a good source for biofuels. Oh, and did I mention EWWW?!

#2. Sure, we all loved making fun of the guy who sued to attempt stop the LHC because it would "end the world". But scientists have to withstand ridiculous lawsuits all the time - like the one by Russian Astrologer Mirana Bai. She sought to sue NASA for probing a comet.

Comet Tempel 1.67 sec.
after Deep Impact

She claimed that the project "Deep Impact," which sent a space probe on a collision course with the comet Tempel 1, "ruins the natural balance of forces in the universe” (as quoted in the newspaper Izvestia).

Bai claimed that the cost of her "moral sufferings" due to the "crater" created by the probe's impact and its affect on her astrology totaled to $300 million. Firstly, I don't think there is anything you could do to me short of total deformation or loss of limb or life that could even begin to total to $300 million dollars. Secondly, she neglected to mention that Tempel 1, which was only discovered in 1867, doesn't actually appear in astrological predictions or the horoscope. So how could it have affected her so cosmically if it wasn't taken into account in the first place?

#3. Albeit the Middle East isn't a big place for women's rights in general, this example really takes the cake. An eight year old girl who was married by her father to a 58 year old man cannot divorce him until puberty.

Blushing Bride?

The Guardian article quotes a lawyer as saying

"The judge has dismissed the plea because she [the mother] does not have the right to file, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty"

The doting dad apparently sold his daughter's hand to settle debts for a grand total of 30,000 riyals ($7,800), although the girl still lives with her mother. The Mother is divorced from the child's father, and was thus seeking the divorce for her daughter. The father stipulated to the buyer that the marriage could not be consummated until the girl was 18 - as if that were some comfort for the child who currently doesn't even know she's married. Is it just me, or is this totally screwed up in an unbelievably insane sort of way?

Feel free to note any other notable examples in comments...

Also, on a random note - why do all the examples always seem to involve lawyers? There ought to be a good punch-line to add here.

Nerdy Gift Ideas Part 3: The ever awaited stocking stuffers

Those reading my nerdy gifts posts #1 and #2 might have noticed there was supposed to be a #3... OK, so this post is a bit past the holiday shopping time, but to my credit, I got busy with the whole holidays thing. So anyhow, here, though a bit belated, are some good nerdy stocking stuffers:

What scientist doesn't want a voo-doo Albert Einstein keychain for extra smart luck? That, and he's just so CUTE!

Click on the title or this link to see the rest of the nerdy stocking stuffers!

Who doesn't want a pen that also functions as a USB drive and a Laser pointer? Of course, they're perfect for your favorite scientist traveling to yearly conferences...

Disease and family fun - it's the best of both worlds! Check out INFECTION: THE BOARD GAME!

"The first one to be completely disease free (or the last player living) wins the game"

I couldn't make that up.

Of course, every biologist loves to bring their work with them to show the world. And what travels better than a pocket microscope?? Then they can show you all the fun stuff that lives in your water or on your skin...
if you really want to know.

"Soap so smart, it doesn't have to smell pretty." Now that's a nerdy idea!

This one is a must if you have a neurologist on your list. A Brain Jello Mold - the ultimate nerdy party accessory. You can even make a brain jello shot - C'mon! You know that would be cool.

For those scientists who can't have a white christmas, get them some Instant Snow. It makes the holidays happen in any weather!

Because only a scientist neighbor would want to borrow a volume-of-honey-made-by-a-bee-hive-in-a-day's worth of sugar

Every year is a year for science, so commemorate your year with your beloved nerd with a yearly molecule ornament. This year is Menthol!

Let your favorite nerd show off their evolutionary prowess with the Evolving Darwin Play Set. It's like army men for biologists!

OK, that's it. If you have any other great gift ideas be sure to post them in the comments!