Google Search Meme

Oi! I've been poked again with a meme, this time by Daniel. But, I have to admit, it sounded fun.

Here's the deal: to find search terms that get this blog as the top result - obviously not just your title. It's far more entertaining that you'd expect. Here's the best ones I could find:

Dose of cute
Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite
Christie is a nerd
National geographic nerd
Nerd sex smells

And my personal favorites:

Christie is absolute evil
Nerdy sex with Christie
Christie smells funny
Christie is a sexy nerd
Christie: hot and hard to keep
Christie boosts fertility

Yeah, I couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes.

OK, Let's see if Greg Laden, Ed Baker (whichever blog you want...), and Dr Hale want to take a gander at it!

New Nat Geo Special: Kingdom Of The Blue Whale!

Heart the size of a Mini Cooper.
Mouth big enough to hold 100 people.
Longer than a basketball court.
Weighing as much as 25 large elephants.
It is the largest creature ever to inhabit the earth.
But we know precious little about it.

That's right, folks! Yours truly (and a few other awesome bloggers) have been given the opportunity to screen National Geographic Channel’s new TV program “Kingdom of the Blue Whale,” which premieres Sunday, March 8, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, thanks to a very kind and wonderful Digital Consultant, Minjae Ormes.

Instead of posting repetitive reviews, Daniel Brown at BiochemicalSoul, Allie at Oh For The Love Of Science! and I decided to split up the 2 hour special between us. Daniel's awesome post about the effects, cinematography, and overall appearance of the special is already up. As the conservationist, Allie will cover those aspects of the special. Which leaves me, the marine biologist, to get into the nitty gritty science and physiology. So I guess I'd better get started!

Go to any natural history or science museum with a dinosaur skeleton and you will hear people oohing and ahhing at their immense size. How big and amazing the dinosaurs were! But we have a creature far bigger and more amazing living today, and yet few have ever seen it. Let me give you the numbers: The largest Tyrannosaurus only weighed in at 1/30^th the tonnage of a blue whale. The largest herbivores ever discovered? Still only 1/3^rd the whale's mass. Here's a scale image that shows exactly how giagantic these creatures are:


Despite being larger than any creature that has ever lived on our planet, we know next to nothing about them. No one has ever witnessed them mating or giving birth. No one even knows where they do these things. They eat an unfathomable thousands of pounds of krill a day - the weight of a semi truck or two in miniscule shrimp-like creatures - and we have no idea how they find them.

Cetacean Evolution

Here's what we do know. Blue Whales, like all whales and dolphins, are cetaceans. The Cetacean lineage were once land animals, related to hoofed animals like llamas. About 50 million years ago, some small carnivorous hoofed animals tested out the water, and gradually adapted to aquatic life. By about 40 million years ago, cetaceans were fully marine. Sometime after that, around 30 to 15 million years ago, cetaceans split into the two major groups: the odontocetes, or toothed whales (including dolphins), and the mysticetes, or baleen whales. It's to the latter group that the immense Blue Whale belongs.

Baleen

As a mysticete, Blues have large fibrous plates instead of teeth that they use to filter small organisms out of the water. Mystecetes are the bigger group of whales, including such well-known species as Humpbacks and Right whales. Because of their immense sizes, baleen whales were the species of choice for whalers, and remain so today. The Blue Whale and its closest kin, the Fin, Sei, and Minke whales, were favorite targets of whalers, for their size meant more blubber and meat. The Blue's smaller cousins, the Minke and Sei whales, are still hunted by the Japanese commercial "research" whalers today.

Because of whaling, Blue Whale populations are less than 1/100^th of what they once were. Like other large mammals, Blue Whales are slow to mature and reproduce, making it hard for them to rebound from such drastic population cuts. A species which used to number in the hundreds of thousands in the Antarctic hovers in the thousands throughout the world. Is it any wonder, then, that they are so hard to find?

What this special shows, in amazing and breathtaking video, is how hard it is to study Blue Whales. No matter how big they may be, blue whales are like needles in a haystack of ocean. And even if you find them, the research itself is difficult. Blues only surface briefly to breathe before plunging back down into the depths. They're fast, too - especially compared to the small boats needed to get close enough to tag and collect samples from such immense beasts. They can travel 100 miles in a day. And even still there are other difficulties - tags fall off, animals die, and whatever can go wrong often does when it comes to scientific research.

Despite the troubles, National Geographic researchers were determined to learn more about these hidden giants. It's only through knowledge that we can identify the best ways to preserve these whales. This special documents their travels - the ups and downs, and most importantly, their discoveries.

I don't want to give too much away - it's a special truly worth watching. You'll end up in awe of these massive majesties and angry at the state of their populations. And all the while you'll get a fascinating look into the brain and muscle that goes behind marine biological research.

One thing that particularly stuck out that I can't help but talk about, however, was the discussion of Blue/Fin whale hybrids. There have been at least 11 documented cases of these pairings. Fin whales are the second largest whales in the world, and are cousins to Blues. But Fin whales aren't protected like Blue whales are - they're still hunted in icelandic waters for cash "research" like the Minke and Sei whales are by the Japanese. If these pairings become more common, there's no protection for their offspring, which are mistaken for Fin whales.

What's so strange and therefore intriguing about these species mating is that Fin and Blue whales are as related to each other as we are to gorillas. It's possible that Blue Whale numbers are so low that they're breeding with other species to survive - even one that's quite distant, genetically. Can you imagine a human-gorilla hybrid? Even if it is genetically viable (who knows?), I can't picture overcoming such a gulf of differences. Yet the Blue and Fin whales can, and do. What does this mean for both species? Is this evolution in action? The same issue has arisen with Polar Bears - they've started breeding with Grizzlies. It seems a startling trend for endangered species, and one I am very alarmed by. It's not every day that creatures step backward (so to speak) and rejoin evolutionary branches that split thousands, if not millions of years ago. If anything, it seems a desperate call which reveals just how in trouble these animals really are.

Kingdom of the Blue Whale is truly a wonderful treat. It's a unique insight into a world that we so rarely get to glimpse, and it will truly pull on your heart strings.

Oh, and did I mention it's narrated by Tom Selleck? You totally have to watch it just for that.

I'm not the only one impressed by rays

This giant freshwater stingray was caught as a part of a National Geographic expedition in Thailand this week. It weighed in at a whopping 550 to 990 lbs and was as wide as a full grown man is tall. For the record, that would be one huge, painful barb to be stung by. The expedition was searching for "Megafishes" as a part of a documentary on Earth's 20 largest freshwater fish.

The gargantuan ray is one of the 200 species of rays and is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN red list. Little is known about their ecology since fishing decimated their populations. The National Geographic expedition hopes to learn more about this rare and enormous beast.

Personally, I hope the special comes out soon! It'll be one I'll be sure not to miss!

Enjoying Florida, Part 3

Sure, seeing gators is cool. And the Jellyfish was a personal fetish. But this - this is so much cooler.

Before I get ahead of myself, let me explain. In Florida, we have these slow-moving, cow like sea creatures called Manatees. They're cute in an ugly sort of way. Anyhow, when it gets colder out, they like to travel upstream or to just about anywhere warm. As it turns out, a local power plant happens to make the water around itself pretty warm while cooling its systems - about 80 degrees F, which is upwards of 10 to 30 degrees warmer than the bay water temperature during the colder months of the year. So, enjoying the free warmth, the manatees congregate in the waters around this plant. Some smart people at the plant figured this out, and set up a nice overlook so people could come and appreciate the spectacle. And, by chance, Barry and I happened to find this little overlook while driving back from dropping some of his family off at the Tampa Airport:



See all the brownish bumps in the water? Those are manatees. There were upwards of 50!

But that is not what is so much cooler than the previous posts.

Also included in this little lookout is a path and a pier that you can go look out from. As I sat failing to catch a close-up shot of a manatee as it surfaced nearby (a truly futile effort), Barry was staring at the oyster bed and its associated fish, etc that happened to have grown adjacent to this pier. Then, he saw something else. This, to be precise:



For those not familiar with their ray species, it's a spotted eagle ray. They're magnificent creatures. As a volunteer at the Florida Aquarium, I got to feed the rays in the Bays and Beaches exhibit, including some spotted eagle rays. Their noses are incredibly soft: they feel like little puppies gently taking food from your hands. I'll remember that feeling for the rest of my life. Seeing one in the wild was AWESOME. We actually saw two different ones - it was amazing. The pier also hosted a variety of fish and other organisms, like crabs and other little invertebrates.

As cool as the manatees were, the spotted eagle rays were so much cooler. I had a strong urge to climb down and try to get an underwater shot - which, in retrospect, probably would have been a bad idea, so I'm glad I stuck to the pier. They do have a nice, poisonous barb that would let me know if I got too close. They're just so beautiful and graceful! I felt truly lucky to see one so close up and in its natural habitat.

OK, I think that's all for enjoying Florida... for now. I do go to Casperson Beach this weekend, though... If I get a big shark's tooth, I don't know if I'll be able to resist posting about it!

Mystery Time!

I thought I'd try to build some suspense for a future post (that, and I want an excuse to post some nice pictures). So, I'll just leave you with these clues:

1. Tom Selleck.
2. A heart the size of a mini-cooper.

And these images:




What am I going to write about? You'll have to see... or go ahead, try to guess!

Which also reminds me, in general. Check out the footer to my posts - I successfully added some "reactions" and "ratings". It'll make me feel a whole lot more special if people use them!

A truly original artwork - your genome

Can't find that perfect piece to tie your living room together?

How about your DNA?

A company called DNA 11 offers you the opportunity to turn your genes into works of art. They're actually quite attractive, too. Kind of modern-styling with a nerd edge:





Of course, it'll cost you at least $169 a piece, but hey - that's the price of a quality artwork! I guarantee you when I stop being a broke scientist*, I'm going to get me one of these for my house that I'll be able to afford*. They're just too cool


*wishful thinking, I know
Hat-Tip

In Hawaii, Big Women Are Sexy

*posted 1^st on OLS Buzz, but thought those of you who don't subscribe to both of my blogs you all might enjoy it, too...*

"Sleep, and dream of large women..."

Westley might have been talking to a giant, but he could have said the same thing to the humpback whale population that spends every December to April in the "four-island" region off of the coast of Maui, Hawaii. Researchers from the Dolphin Institute in Honolulu have been monitoring, photographing, and recording information about humpbacks in the area for years. They wanted to better understand the mating behavior of these immense aquatic beasts.

Humpback whales are one of the largest whales in the ocean, but even still observing and recording data on mating strategies is difficult. Researchers had learned that they form what are called "competitive groups," where a slew of males fight to have access to a single female.

This is not always ideal for the women, who have to fend off lower quality males as best they can. My professor at Eckerd even tells a tale about how, while trying to conduct photo surveys of humpbacks, one female sought refuge under the boat. The persistent males were not deterred, and one even flopped his, *eh-em*, organ onto the deck and proceeded to fling it around in an attempt to find the female's hidden sweet spot. Anyhow, some females garnish more attention than others - the poor women have as many as 20 suitors vying for them. So scientists wondered what made a female most attractive to their potential mates.

Using photo surveys, researchers looked at individual females and how many males courted them. They found that the larger a female was in terms of body length, the more men tried to sleep with her. So, for whales anyhow, size does matter, and bigger is better.

Why would whales prefer larger women? Because, like humans, whales put a lot of investment into their offspring. Bigger females are older, wiser, and fatter - therefore able to provide more nourishment to their young. Other data has shown that bigger females give birth to bigger babies, giving them the best chances at survival. Just like human men like big hips because they're correlated with easier, complication-free births and big boobs that are all the better to feed babies with, whale men like large women because they're more likely to produce healthy offspring which survive to continue the lineage.

Of course, the cost of trying for the best babe is that there's more competition - and where's there's more competition, there's more risk for injury as the larger males beat up on the smaller ones to get to the girl. So while the sexiest whales are the largest, smaller ones still get attention.

Research like this is helping us understand the seldom-witnessed interaction between these magnificent beasts. By better understanding their nature, we can better ensure their survival, so generations to come can enjoy the magic of seeing these immense giants firsthand.

Link to the study

Vote For Mike!!

My college friend, Mike, has applied to the best job in the world. He's a great guy and a total nerd, so vote him up and give him the chance of a lifetime: Vote NOW!!!

Enjoying Florida, Part 2

Ok. So, as a marine biologist, I happen to know a few things about marine organisms. Whenever I walk on a beach and find something interesting, I happen to enjoy talking about those few things I know to whoever is unlucky enough to be walking with me. I love finding marine life on the beaches - it just never gets old. So you can imagine my excitement when we're strolling along Casey Key near sunset and we see this:



It was about a foot across - it was huge! I had a total nerd moment.

At this point, I have a confession to make. I've heard that admitting you have a problem is the first step to overcoming it. Well, I have a problem. I like to touch jellyfish. I have this unavoidable urge to touch any jellyfish I find - just ask Allie about the moon jelly we caught off the boat in Fiji. So, of course, I had to touch the huge jellyfish on Casey Key, and I convinced Barry to check it out, too:

As soon as we started touching the bell, someone ran up and said "Oh no! Don't touch it! It'll sting you!" To which, of course, I explained that I'm a marine biologist, and that the bell doesn't have any stinging cells, only the tentacles do. (For the record, as I said I have a problem: I felt those, too. Luckily, since it was on the ground for so long, all the nematocysts had fired already so I got away with it.)

Anyhow, lo and behold, later on we're watching the sunset and some kids have discovered our little gelatinous friend. No sooner have they bent down for a closer look that we hear on the wind:

"Go ahead! Touch it! A marine biologist was doing it earlier!"


That's right. Nerdiness - it spreads like a virus. The Nerd is contagious. And I infected a nice group of people on Casey Key.

Anyhow, it was also quite a beautiful sunset:

Weekly Dose of Cute

Gotta love Zooborns for always finding great cute baby photos. I think these guys are simply the cutest in that weird, funny-looking sort of way!





They're Tawny Frogmouth chicks. Below is an image Allie took when we went behind the scenes at SeaWorld of an adult. They're similar to owls, but are not true "owls". They are raptors, like owls, but they catch their prey with their beaks instead of their talons and have a few physiological differences. Like many species of birds, they're monogamous, and will stick to their mate until death do them part. And, as far as conservation is concerned, they're doing just fine - so don't worry, these cuties will be around for awhile.

Enjoying Florida, Part 1

So I live in Florida. It has its benefits. For example, last weekend I went walking around Myakka State Park with Barry and his family. Whenever you walk in a park in Florida with water, you're really looking for one thing: Gators. Luckily, just about every body of freshwater in Florida has them, so you're not disappointed:



These guys were hanging out, sunning themselves about 30 feet away from us. I wanted to get closer for a good head shot, but Barry said I shouldn't... Oh well.

But alligators aren't the only wildlife that Myakka has to offer. Check out these shots we got of some turkey vultures:



It's also just a wonderful place to hike. They have this really neat "canopy walk" where you can walk across the tree tops. At the end is a tall tower which overlooks the entire park!



I'm so lucky to live here! So anyhow, I'll post some more exploring around Florida soon... I have got to show you what you can find on Casey Key!

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite

This isn't the first time I've mentioned Parasitic Wasps. They're a rude sort of parasite, laying their eggs inside unwitting hosts to grow up and eat them from the inside out. While it sounds gross and, frankly, a little evil, it makes them also really good at one thing: biocontrol.

When Sarah Palin made her off-putting remark about research on fruit flies, everyone assumed she meant the bio model Drosophila. But she was actually referring to research on the Olive Fruit Fly, Bactrocera oleae. The pest infiltrated Californian olive groves in the late 1990s, and has been wreaking havoc ever since. Olives are the second largest cash crop in Napa County, below, of course, grapes. The impact of the fly has reduced olive yields by at least 30% - and, in some coastal areas, as high as 100% losses. A 2004 USDA report said it simply: "The recent establishment of the olive fruit fly ... in California has threatened to destroy the U.S. olive industry."

Pesticides and traps are expensive and hurt other wildlife. So, instead, Californians are trying out a new control method: Parasitic Wasps.

It turns out that a wasp from Africa, Psyttalia concolor, happens to deposit its eggs in the maggots of fruit flies. It was introduced to Italy and other Mediterranean areas to control the same pest that plagues California's olive industry. Now scientists from the USDA's Agricultural Research Service are working on understanding the interaction between the wasp and its host to use it as a biological control measure in California's olive groves. Their initial data is promising (PDF). They're discovering exactly how and when the parasite lays its eggs in its host, and how well it parasitizes populations when released into the wild. It's picky about its host, too - thankfully, it doesn't infect beneficial flies native to the area. Studies like this one get us step by step closer to using natural means to keep our crops safe from pests.

So what's so sci-fi about a wasp? How about the fact that it's convinced us to single-handedly increase its habitat from Africa to Europe and the Americas. Talk about an increase in range! It may not use mind control or voo-doo to manipulate us, but we sure are doing it a lot of favors. Imagine a world where we team up with all kinds of parasites... It's a Sci-Fi Utopia! Until, like all Sci-Fi scenarios, something goes terribly wrong... *suspenseful music*

Cited: Victoria Y. Yokoyama, Pedro A. Rendón, John Sivinski (2008). Psyttalia cf. concolor (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) for Biological Control of Olive Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae) in California Environmental Entomology, 37 (3), 764-773 DOI: 10.1603/0046-225X(2008)37[764:PCCHBF]2.0.CO;2

Another study to file under the "duh" category...

Men see scantily clad women as objects according to new research.

...Anyone shocked?

To be entirely scientific, the research, presented at the AAAS annual meeting , showed that the parts of the brain responsible for tool use and action lit up when Princeton college undergrads were shown images of women in bikinis (without their faces) for a fraction of a second.

"This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses," said presenter Susan Fiske (quoted by CNN).

To see the brain's reaction to the images, researchers had 21 undergraduate males take surveys to determine their level of sexism. They then showed them images of women in bikinis while scanning their brains using fMRI. Not only did the area for tool use light up, the area for social interactions, which lights up when trying to see things from another's perspective, didn't. Additional study found that male undergraduates also associate bikini-wearing women with first-person action verbs instead of third person ones (I do this not she does this). The opposite was true of fully clothed images and for women viewing both images.

In other words, the men viewed the women in bikinis as objects, not people.

I know, I know. "Duh".

But it's always good to have science behind the obvious. What this means for women is that we should think about what we're wearing and how we will be perceived. The reactions the men had in these studies weren't conscious, so they're likely unavoidable. Wearing provocative clothing will make them change how they think of you, and if you have a problem with that, don't wear it. Men, on the other hand, should think about how they automatically judge women. Don't let your other head get in the way of getting to know someone or treating them like a human being.

I would like to see similar studies carried out with women instead of men. Do women do the same dehumanizing to a scantily-clad, beefy babe? Or to a clearly rich, powerful man? I also wonder if men would react the same way to their close friends or significant others in bikinis. The CNN article suggests that they probably wouldn't, but I'd tend to disagree. I think any attractive woman in a bikini will get the response - but I guess only future research will tell.

You're not as hot as you think.

Sure, no one wants to think they're ugly. Statistically some of us have to be, but no one wants to think they're below average. But most of us, save a few that Carly Simon might have sung about, think we're pretty accurate about how we look. We know if we're a 2 or a 10 - whether we like to admit it or not. Or, do we?

An ingenious study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PDF) looked at how well people knew their own face. They took neutral photos of people and morphed their images to different degrees to either be more "attractive" (like a composite face) or "less attractive" (people with craniofacial syndrome). They then asked the participants to choose their actual, unmorphed photo from the variety of choices.


You might expect that with the constant barrage of stick-thin women and steroidally-enhanced men from modern media that people would be more critical of themselves. But instead, more than half the participants picked the morphs that were more attractive (even by their own opinions) than their real photos. In other words, they thought they were hotter than they really were.

This makes sense, biologically, because we naturally have an "us" versus "them" mentality. We tend to approve of things we associate with ourselves and disapprove of things we don't. It even extends to seemingly silly things, like preferring letters that are in our own names over ones that aren't.

Participants in the study were also asked to do the same lineup-picking for close friends, and their bias towards attractiveness also extended to them. These data further support that an "us" and "them" mentality is behind these mental adjustments. Getting past our intrinsic biases is no simple task, as studies like this reveal. How do we rid ourselves of prejudice or racism when we can't even accurately look at ourselves?

The authors conclude quite poetically:

"It is perhaps of little wonder, then, that people so rarely seem to like the photographs taken of themselves. The image captured by the camera lens just does not match up to the image captured in the mind’s eye."

Sure, science isn't perfect. We don't know everything. But at least science can explain why "the camera adds ten pounds" and all those facebook pics of me look so...ugh.

On second thought, screw science. I sleep better when I blame the camera.

N. Epley, E. Whitchurch (2008). Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Enhancement in Self-Recognition Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34 (9), 1159-1170 DOI: 10.1177/0146167208318601

It's not their fault, it's ours.

I take a big issue with breed-specific legislation. Politicians target innocent breeds that they claim are "dangerous" because they're too small-minded to look at the facts of how dogs become aggressive. If you were to outlaw "dangerous" breeds, you'd have to start with the most aggressive - like Dachshunds, Chihuahuas, and Jack Russell Terriers. Pit Bulls don't even make the list - and have only ranked higher than 5^th on the Vicious Animal Legislation Task Force's Reports once (in 1992, and were still below Cocker Spaniels). People are killed often by other breeds, including the ever-lovable Lab and even Pomeranians. Even the CDC does not support Breed Specific Legislation. But I digress. What's really important is that it's not the dog's breed that makes it aggressive, it's the dog's owner.

That obvious conclusion was just scientifically supported by a new study out of the University of Pennsylvania. Using surveys, researchers investigated how different training behaviors related to aggressive behavior.

Dogs which were trained using aggressive methods tended to be more aggressive. Methods such as hitting, kicking, growling, physical force, or other intimidation tactics elicited aggressive behavior in at least 25% of the dogs who were subjected to them. And a large portion - 1/3 or more of owners - utilized such methods. But what's even worse is that the owners reported that these methods, though often used, were ineffective. In other words, not only did they use aggressive methods to try to curb bad behavior, but they didn't work.

“Our study demonstrated that many confrontational training methods, whether staring down dogs, striking them or intimidating them with physical manipulation does little to correct improper behavior and can elicit aggressive responses,” said Meghan E. Herron, lead author of the study.

To avoid aggressive behavior, most trainers recommend positive reinforcement or neutral training means, which foster a loving relationship with your pet.

It also adds to the growing evidence that it's the owners, not the dogs, that are the problem. People buy and breed dogs to fight, and then wonder why their neighbor or friend ends up bitten (77% of dog bites are from the pet of family or friends). Or parents leave their kids alone with young, energetic dogs and wonder what goes wrong (upwards of 75% of attacks are against kids). Of course, this isn't the first study to show that it's not the breed that's the problem - others have, too - but this is the first to really directly connect training methods, even commonly used ones, to dog behavior. Hopefully people will start paying attention and instead of banning "aggressive" breeds, put in legislation that hold the owner responsible for their dog's behavior and exacts stiffer penalties out of people who are involved in dog fighting.



D DUFFY, Y HSU, J SERPELL (2008). Breed differences in canine aggression Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 114 (3-4), 441-460 DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2008.04.006

M HERRON, F SHOFER, I REISNER (2009). Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 117 (1-2), 47-54 DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2008.12.011

Sex v. Decongestants

Been feeling under the weather? Nose all stuffed up, barely able to breathe? Well, at least one doctor recommends that you get yourself off to treat that nasal drip, any way you can. Seriously - the suggestion was even published in Medical Hypotheses, a real journal.

The author, Sina Zarrintan from Iran, points out that sex and masturbation might be safer means of relieving nasal decongestion than medications.

The basic argument is simple. Stuffy noses are caused by the nasal membranes becoming swollen from inflamed blood vessels. Orgasms, by nature, turn on the sympathetic nervous system, which, among other things, causes blood vessels to constrict, leading to decongestion. The same system is turned on by decongestants - that's how they work.

Furthermore, the author argues, "oral or topical use of decongestants can have adverse effects of sympathetic stimulation such as hypertension. Furthermore, if used for more than two or three days, they can actually make congestion worse."

Therefore, "ejaculation can be used as a potential treatment of nasal congestion because its emission phase provides a sympathetic stimulation and subsequent vasoconstriction and nasal decongestion."

So instead of using a drug to turn on sympathetic nervous system activities, so the argument goes, use sex.

Also, "the patient can adjust the number of intercourses or masturbations depending on the severity of the symptoms." So you can adjust your 'dose' accordingly.

It sounds good, but not everyone agrees with the author's conclusions. Mohammad Amin Abolghassemi Fakhree, in a response to the pro-ejaculation article, says that the side effects of masturbation outweigh any nasal-decongesting benefits.

Elevated blood pressure and heart rate, for example, can be more harmful than the side-effects of decongestants, and masturbation has been linked to increases in prostate cancer. He also notes that males are limited in how frequently they masturbate, meaning they might not be able to do it enough to alleviate their symptoms.

"Finally," he writes, "ejaculation reflex is affected by both physiological and psychological conditions of individual, so the result can be unreliable."

"Based on these limitations and other possible complications, the author hypothesizes that ejaculation or masturbation cannot be used as a treatment for nasal congestion in mature males, because it is not possible to use every time and everywhere, has its own side effects and is not reliable."

Oh no! Clearly, we need a more thorough research into the potential for this revolutionary treatment plan. Can I get any volunteers for the study?

Sources:
1. S ZARRINTAN (2008). Ejaculation as a potential treatment of nasal congestion in mature males Medical Hypotheses, 71 (2), 308-308 DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2008.03.010

2. M FAKHREE (2008). Ejaculation as a treatment for nasal congestion in men is inconvenient, unreliable and potentially hazardous Medical Hypotheses, 71 (5), 809-809 DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2008.07.022

Weekly Dose of Cute

I can has cheezburger has too many cute photos. Like this one:



I just want to give it a hug.

But you should give it your best LOL caption!

Darwin's Degenerates - Evolution's Finest

If I ask you what group of organisms is an exhibition of evolution at its finest, what would you say? Most people, I think, would say human beings, or at least apex predators. After all, we have staggering intellect compared to our prey items and clearly dominate the planet, eat what we will, etc. Not only that, we're insanely complex. Ask some scientists, and they might give you any number of answers. Cockroaches are likely to exist long after we do, as are rodents, so maybe they get the title. Or, being scientists, they might be biased to whatever organism they study. Maybe algae and plants, as the sustenance for all other life. But all of you, in my humble opinion, are wrong. That is, unless you choose parasites.

It's ok if you don't believe me yet. Darwin wouldn't have, either. He and his contemporaries viewed parasites as degenerates who, at best, violated the progressive nature of evolution. Even in The Origin of Species, Darwin refers to parasites as regressive instead of progressive. But truly, no group of species is a better choice for evolution's finest.

Soybean Nematode and Egg

First off, let's talk numbers. Parasitism is the most popular lifestyle on earth - over 40% of all known species are parasitic, and the number of parasitic species rises daily¹. Sure, you might say, but they tend to be small. In that case, let's talk biomass - weight, just to be clear. One group of parasites, the flukes, have been found to be equal in weight to fish in estuarine habitats, and three to nine times the weight of the top predators, the birds - estimates which are thought to be conservative for the earth as a whole². Though they're largely ignored when we study food webs, they've been estimated to be involved in over 75% of inter-species interactions¹. Clearly, by the numbers, they are the most prolific and successful organisms on earth.

But even that is not why I would argue they are evolution's finest. They, more than any other group out there, both exhibit extreme evolutionary adaptations and spur them onward in other species.

Toxoplasma gondii

No matter how complex or how impressive any other species may be, it has parasites. We do - lots, actually. Every species we might hold as a masterpiece of evolutionary complexity cannot out maneuver their parasites. Not one. Even parasites, marvelous as some are, have parasites - like a crazy russian doll. They have evolved amazing abilities to survive host defense systems, manipulate host behavior and boost heir own reproductive success. They've even been implicated in major cultural differences in people. It turns out that a rat parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, needs to be eaten by a cat to complete its lifestyle. Somehow it developed a trick to make rats unafraid of cat smells. When it accidentally ends up in people, it does the same kind of mind-altering, making people more guilty and insecure, even more frugal, mild-tempered, and complacent³. Other parasites do far more intricate manipulations of behavior, turning males into females, creating walking zombies, even forcing suicide. If parasites can not only break into and survive the most complex assortments of systems available, even with modern medicine fighting against them, and manipulate those complex organisms to slave to their bidding, how can we not credit them as masters at what they do?

left: Malaria and red blood cells.
^{© Prof David Ferguson}
right: Haemonchus contortus.

But even more impressively, I would argue, is that no other group has so dramatically impacted how other species have evolved. They don't just affect their hosts immune systems, either. If you read much into evolutionary theory, you realize it's riddled with parasites. Why are some birds very colorful? Oh, because if they've got a lot of parasites they can't be, so it's a signal of a healthy male⁴. Why are we attracted to certain people? Because their immune genes are different from ours, giving our children the best chance to fight off the next generation of parasites. Almost everywhere you look, evolutionary changes are spurred on by parasites. It's even suggested that sex itself evolved as a response to parasites. It's a way of better shuffling our genes so that we have better odds at fighting off parasites.

Leishmania amazonensis

Even we, as "ideal" or "complex" as we are, owe much to parasites. Some even argue that we are worse off without them. The argument, as it goes, is that our immune system evolved in the presence of unkillable parasites, particularly the parasitic worms. These worms, or Helminths as they are called as a group, were too costly to try and eradicate. Attacking foreign invaders, after all, is energetically expensive, and always runs the risk of over-activating our immune system, leading to self-inflicted injuries and diseases. So the best strategy, instead, was to have an immune system that functioned optimally against other issues, like the fatal viruses or bacteria, despite the mostly benign worm infections⁵. Since worms secrete anti-inflammatory compounds to fight off our defenses, we were better off with systems that overcompensated for that. Now, since we have drugs which kill them off, our immune system is out of balance. Many cite the rising rates of auto-immune and inflammatory diseases like allergies, arthritis, irritable bowel, type 1 diabetes, and even cancer in developed nations as evidence that ridding ourselves of helminths has damaged our health⁶. They're backed up with multiple studies that show unexpected results, like that mice genetically predisposed to diabetes never develop it if infected with flukes at an early enough age.⁷

Parasites are uniquely capable of out-evolving their hosts and adapting to whatever changes go on in them. Simply put, they evolve better. They change their genes faster and keep up with a barrage of host defense systems, often like it's effortless, spurring onward dramatic changes in other species. If Darwin had only known how amazingly complex the barriers these creatures have to overcome and the extent to which they have affected the species he'd encountered on his travels, he would not have labeled them "degenerates".

As far as evolution is concerned, no group of species demonstrates it, causes it, and is so capable of it as the parasites. While disgusting or even cruel, they are truly evolutionary masterpieces. So while you may find them vile or detestable, you have to admit they're good at it. Can you really argue that some other group is more deserving of the title of Evolution's Finest?


Cited:
1. A. Dobson, K. D. Lafferty, A. M. Kuris, R. F. Hechinger, W. Jetz (2008). Colloquium Paper: Homage to Linnaeus: How many parasites? How many hosts? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (Supplement_1), 11482-11489 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803232105

2. Armand M. Kuris, Ryan F. Hechinger, Jenny C. Shaw, Kathleen L. Whitney, Leopoldina Aguirre-Macedo, Charlie A. Boch, Andrew P. Dobson, Eleca J. Dunham, Brian L. Fredensborg, Todd C. Huspeni, Julio Lorda, Luzviminda Mababa, Frank T. Mancini, Adrienne B. Mora, Maria Pickering, Nadia L. Talhouk, Mark E. Torchin, Kevin D. Lafferty (2008). Ecosystem energetic implications of parasite and free-living biomass in three estuaries Nature, 454 (7203), 515-518 DOI: 10.1038/nature06970

3. Kevin D. Lafferty (2006). Can the common brain parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, influence human culture? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 273 (1602), 2749-2755 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2006.3641

4. Jesús Martínez-Padilla, François Mougeot, Lorenzo Pérez-Rodríguez, Gary R. Bortolotti (2007). Nematode parasites reduce carotenoid-based signalling in male red grouse Biology Letters, 3 (2), 161-164 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0593

5. Joseph A. Jackson, Ida M. Friberg, Susan Little, Janette E. Bradley (2009). Review series on helminths, immune modulation and the hygiene hypothesis: Immunity against helminths and immunological phenomena in modern human populations: coevolutionary legacies? Immunology, 126 (1), 18-27 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2567.2008.03010.x

6. Joel V. Weinstock, David E. Elliott (2009). Helminths and the IBD hygiene hypothesis Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, 15 (1), 128-133 DOI: 10.1002/ibd.20633

7. Anne Cooke (2009). Review series on helminths, immune modulation and the hygiene hypothesis: How might infection modulate the onset of type 1 diabetes? Immunology, 126 (1), 12-17 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2567.2008.03009.x

Some Valentine's Day Tid-Bits

hat tip Linda Lin

Some good science/love quotes:
"In science as in love, too much concentration on technique can often lead to impotence."
— P. L. Berger

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."
— Henry Louis Mencken

"When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before."
—Blaise Pascal

"Love is a better teacher than duty."
—Albert Einstein

"To make love work, understand where it comes from."
"Falling in love may be natural, but that doesn't mean it's not exceptional."
—Carl Zimmer

And, while I'm at it...

According to Heisenberg's Uncertanty Principle of QM, we way allready be in love right now.

You must be auxin, cause you are causing me to have rapid stem elongation.

I wish I were adenine because then I could get paired with U.

You’re so cute you make my zygomaticus muscles contract.

My favorite mechanism is backside attack. And you?

Hee hee... Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

This Week's Sci-Fi Worthy Parasite

Happy Valentine's Day! Though, I doubt this post fits well into your lovely romantic images of the day...

I promised another vertebrate, so here it is, a parasite so cruel it's sure to make you cringe: The Candiru.

It looks innocent enough. It's a little catfish. Heck, it's so little it's known as the "toothpick fish", and yet it's more feared in the Amazon River than the fierce Piranha.

To understand why, you have to understand what this parasitic catfish does. It's intended hosts are other fish. When it finds a host, it burrows its head in to its gills and eats the blood, tissues, or mucus of the unwitting meal. What's most amazing is how this little fish, which only grows up to 6 inches long, is able to parasitize such nimble prey. It lies in wait in the depths, 'sniffing' the water for fish waste products like ammonia. It follows these scent trails to their creator, and launches itself as hard as it can into the gill cavity, sticking in place with its spines. It then eats inward, usually towards a major blood vessel, and when it's had enough to eat leaves the usually fatally-injured fish to digest its ill-gotten gains and wait for the next meal.

Now, there's one problem with this plan - fish aren't the only producers of ammonia-based waste products. People produce a similar compound, which the Candiru mistakes for its beloved fish excretion. Now replace "gill cavity" with urethra, vagina, or anus of a person, and...

Do I really need to explain the reason it's so feared where it lives?

Unfortunately, the fish can't survive in this accidental host... and, of course, the accidental host isn't too happy about its presence, either. Removing the Candiru from human tissues generally requires very delicate surgery, and I imagine the pain before and after is excruciating.

Talk about a nasty reminder not to pee in the pool - or at least, not to pee in the Amazon...