The Oyster’s Garter

The American Institute of Physics recognizes that poop is for all scientists, not just biologists. They’ve awarded “Jurassic Poop” the best children’s science writing of the year. “Jurassic Poop” also comes with the optional coprolite case (scroll down), for when you just can’t bear to leave your fossilized feces at home.

Will “Jurassic Poop” replace “Everyone Poops” as the #2 children’s classic? Stay tuned!

Thanks to Sam, who is pretty much keeping TOG going these days.

The BBC and the Times of London are all ahoo over the possibility that French inventor Guy Negre may have finally developed a commercially viable car that runs on compressed air. I say “finally”, because Negre, who used to be a Formula One engineer, has spent 15 years trying to bring his air car to market. In 2003 he was promising air cars as soon as “next year” in Germany. Still, he now claims to have a made a breakthrough, and apparently he’s convinced the owner of Indian car maker Tata and an Australian auto maker that he’s got the real deal, and both are hoping to produce air cars for their local markets possibly by the end of this year, or early 2009. We’ll see about that.

Is it even a good idea? (more…)

Jarrett discovered that the world’s first Dance Your PhD contest just took place in Vienna - and it is FIIINE. All those scientific talks must lead to a talent for interpretive dance. You must watch the videos - I especially like the loincloth-clad antelope hunter and the insane flailing techno-astronomer.

Actually, Jarrett and I are experienced interpretive dancers. After spending some very long summers out on an island in the middle of the Gulf of Maine as undergrads, we were able to dance the entire Gulf of Maine rocky assemblage, from barnacles to snails to crabs. And we did. Often at college parties. (Because we’re cool! Only cool people know different dances for Littorina littorea vs. Littorina obtusata!)

Marine scientists would totally represent if we decided to take up this most excellent tradition - perhaps at next year’s WSN conference. With a sheyn ponem like this one (”a pretty face,” but it sounds better in Yiddish), marine biologists are clearly made to rock.

If you’re concerned about climate change and into gardening, Project Budburst is for you. They are soliciting “citizen-scientists” to participate in a huge nationwide study on phenology, which is the timing of seasonal events, like the first bud or the first full leaf. (Not to be confused with phrenology, the study of bumpy heads.)

Phenology sounds obscure, but it’s absolutely critical to healthy ecosystems. For example, many insects are evolved to hatch at a certain time of year, just in time to eat freshly grown plants. If they hatch too early or too late, no food for them, and that year’s whole generation can be die of starvation. This also happens in the ocean, where seasonal plankton blooms feed tiny crustaceans which feed fish we like to eat, like pollock.

Each volunteer will select at least one plant to observe, and enter all the seasonal data online. Eventually, all the data from Project Budburst will be combined in a big map, and data will be free to download. Here’s a news release with more info.

Why is my ground up turkey “infused with spice extract”? You can’t read it from the tiny image at right, but the text below “Ground Turkey” reads “infused with natural spice extract”. Why? Foster Farms supplies decent turkey: no hormones, no steroids, no artificial enhancers. But I just don’t trust this “spice extract” business. And unfortunately, the other ground turkey in the store, Shady Brook Farms, also has spice extract. Do I really need to shop at Whole Foods Market just to get plain old ground turkey?  Sigh.

The environmental movement is rooted in guilt. The idea is to effect change by making people identify with being a Good Person who Does Not Do the Bad Thing. Good people recycle, bad people do not. Good people do not litter, bad people do. Both of these have been very effective in changing behavior.

But then we get into the realm of food. In the US, the subject of food is practically boiled in guilt. The most common guilt is weight-related - will eating this tasty thing make me a hideous obese social outcast? But environmental food guilt is on the rise, particularly in regards to fish comsumption. Mark Powell has a thought-provoking post up on the role of desire in conservation:

I’m no expert on religion, but it seems like many environmentalists, and quite a few sustainable seafood advocates, make a big mistake in using guilt and expecting it to be strong enough to get people to fight their desires. When we use this approach, I think we risk marginalizing ourselves and we might even start to resemble a sad caricature of a preacher seeking religious converts by threatening fire-and-brimstone.

Threatening problems for people who fall off the straight-and-narrow path of sustainable seafood might work if the prize we have to offer is something really big like everlasting life, but it seems futile when the only thing we can promise is the reward of a bland but sustainable dinner.

Mark suggests trying to unite people’s desire for tasty food with their desire to do environmental good. This reminded me of message of the The Omnivore’s Dilemma - the food that tastes the best is the least processed and most sustainable. But then I was reminded of Sam’s falling-out with Michael Pollan. His new book, In Defense of Food, made her feel bad about eating:

But IDOF made me feel like a gluttonous pig contributing to the wasteful, nutritionally devoid, environmentally blighting indulgence of modern American culture, in the way that overweight people are encouraged to feel by diet books. And I don’t have to take that from a book!

So, TOG readers, is that how you feel when told not to eat something for environmental reasons? Do you think Mark is on to something with trying to encourage people to desire sustainable food, rather than berating them for desiring unsustainable food? Can environmentalists educate without using guilt? And, most importantly for me, should the marine biologists of the world be banned from engaging in dinnertime lectures education?

Planktos, the science-deficient private company that wanted to fertilize the oceans with iron, has gone out of business. Plankos was notable for the inanity of its arguments and the belligerence of its CEO. In fact, they couldn’t resist one parting shot, blaming their bankruptcy on ” a highly effective disinformation campaign waged by anti-offset crusaders.” How very shocking!

Thanks to Rick for the heads-up and the high-five! Now let’s keep our beady little crusader eyeballs on Australia’s Ocean Nourishment Company, which is apparently still in the urea-dumping business.

You know you’ve seen this one: A normal animal is given a robot brain by well-meaning scientists. The scientists promise everyone they have complete control of the situation. Then the lead scientist gets eaten when the creature escapes and TRIES TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD. All right, maybe that was just a Pinky and the Brain episode, but still, shouldn’t the Defense Department heed the warnings of generations of science fiction writers? Souping up animals with robotic parts is never a good idea. Yet, there it is: the Defense Department wants to make remote controlled sharks.

Here’s why: Sharks have an excellent sense of smell, and they can follow changes in electro-magnetic radiation in the water. Therefore, they’re ideally suited for following missile submarines around underwater (I do love the leaps of logic, don’t you?). The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has already figured out how to implant complicated circuits into the sharks’ brains. The next step is to take “behavioral control” of the shark itself. I imagine grad students playing shark water polo during off hours.

As if radio-controlled sharks weren’t enough, they also want behavioral control of wasps. DARPA has a request for proposals that asks researchers to embed a microcircuit in a pupa wasp. After the wasp metamorphoses into an adult, the chip will still be in there. Then the chip will connect to the muscles of the wasp, enabling people to control the bug from a computer. The project description includes another one of those marvelous leaps in logic:

“The animal world has provided mankind with locomotion over millennia. For example, we have used horses and elephants for locomotion in wars and conducting commerce. Birds have been used for sending covert messages, and to detect gases in coal mines, a life-saving technique for coal miners. More recently, olfactory training of bees has been used to locate mines and weapons of mass destruction. The HI-MEMS program is aimed to develop technology that provides more control over insect locomotion, just as saddles and horseshoes are needed for horse locomotion control.”

So, the chip is just like a saddle. Right. I’ll remember to yell “Whoa, there, little fellas” when I’m being attacked by amped up wasps the military was confident it could contain.

Oh, and of course, this is a blatant excuse to repost one of Miriam’s and my favorite YouTube clips, a cautionary tale against mucking about with shark brains.

[both tips thanks to Technovelogy]

The Oyster’s Garter does not endorse putting bivalves in beer. This is rank heresy! Obviously, perfectly good bivalves should be breaded, buttered, and fried.

The Tolkien Trust and HarperCollins are suing New Line for money they feel their owed on the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. As part of the suit, the estate wants the rights to The Hobbit back. I’d like to give the Tolkien family a hard time about this, but New Line tried to screw Peter Jackson and previous rights holder out Saul Zaentz of cash too. They may just be jerks. But dammit, Jackson had agreed to produce The Hobbit film. It was scheduled to start filming as a two-part series in 2009, due out in 2010. Let’s get this show back on the road!