Bodyguard Manipulation - Or "Why I'm Taking Over Your Brain and Turning You Into a Zombie."

We're probably all somewhat familiar with the concept of parasites using their hosts' bodies to serve their own nefarious ends.  I think we all know the story of Zuul, the Gatekeeper of Gozer, all too well.  But, in the bug world, there's a parasitic insect that's taken things to a whole new level.  Meet Ampulex compressa, better known as nasty-ass-little brain-sucking-wasp.  It may also be called the "jewel wasp", but what do I know?  I'm not a biologist.  


In a nutshell, these wasps inject venom into the brains of their hosts.  They are then able to manipulate the mobility of the host bodies.  For example, by injecting the poison directly into the protocerebrum of the cockroach, the wasp can control the cockroach's ability to walk.  This is accomplished by inhibiting the octopamine production in the roach's brain.  What does all of this mean for the cockroach?


"Unable to fight back, the 'zombie' cockroach can be pulled into the wasp's underground lair, where an egg is laid in its abdomen. The larva later hatches and eats the still living but incapacitated cockroach from the inside out."


Ew.  For more on that, click the Nat Geo link above.


The jewel wasp isn't the only wasp to get in on the zombie game. Dinocampus coccinellae, a braconid wasp, likes to use its host to hatch larva.  After the larva hatches, it zaps the ladybug with some poison so that the ladybug will continue to be subject to the churlish desires of the wasp larva.


"[S]cientists note that sometimes the ladybugs survive the larva's emergence, and in those cases, the D. coccinellae larva then 'brainwashes' the bug into defending the vulnerable cocoon from predators," to paraphrase Nat Geo and Jacques Brodeur, a biologist from the  University of Montreal.


Double ew.  So glad I'm not a ladybug.  Or a cockroach.  Or any bug at all, really.  

BSG Composer Creates Symphony For Last Shuttle Launch

Bear McCreary, composer of the television score for Battlestar Galactica, has created a special symphonic piece for the final shuttle launch of the NASA space shuttle program.  According to NASA, "The composition will be played first on Friday morning at the NASA launch TweetUp."  


As many of you know, I heart Battlestar Galactica.  BUT I'M STILL WATCHING THE SERIES SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD/SPACE/TIME/CARL SAGAN DO NOT TELL ME HOW IT ENDS.


Anywho, there's a chance the shuttle launch may get bumped...again.  According to an article published in Computerworld earlier today, lightning and thunderstorms may put the kibosh on tomorrow's scheduled launch.  With only a 30% chance of fair skies and isolated thunderstorms expected throughout the late morning hours, we'll have to keep a weather eye open for any updates.

Adios, Atlantis

Sad times for us outer space junkies.  Next Friday marks the 135th NASA shuttle mission.  And, the last.  


NASA's space shuttle fleet first zoomed into outer space on April 12, 1981.  During those thirty years, 355 lucky folks have had the opportunity to escape our atmosphere and hangout in that chilly vacuum beyond.  The purpose of this final NASA shuttle mission is to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.  NASA is reportedly ending shuttle missions in order "to make way for future programs aimed at sending astronauts to visit an asteroid by 2025, then target missions to Mars."

The launch is currently set for 11:26 EDT, Friday, July 8th, at Kennedy Space Center.  If you want to watch this flight finale, check out http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html on the morning of the flight.

Yellowstone. Just the Biggest Volcano in North America.

Yellowstone National Park is known for a number of things: sweeping vistas, geysers, wildlife, etc.  But what some may not know is that Yellowstone is a supervolcano.  No, not a little volcano.  Not a medium volcano.  It's the biggest volcanic feature in all of North America.

Let's put it in perspective.  As someone who was born shortly after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, I know a thing or two about volcanoes.  Thing one: magma - don't throw your keys in it.  Thing two: volcanic ash - good luck getting that out of your car engine.  Luckily, I can turn to the Discovery Channel to fill in the rest of the blanks.  Mt. St. Helens' crater is about 2 square miles.  Yellowstone's caldera (broad sunken area) is 1,500 square miles.  The last time Yellowstone blew (not quite 700,000 years ago), it emitted 8,000 times more ash and lava than our friend in the PNW.

Oh, great.  So what happens to all of us funny little humans if Yellowstone gets its ire up?  Total suckage.


"There is no argument that a major eruption at Yellowstone in modern times would be devastating. It would obliterate the national park and nearby communities, spread ground-glass-like volcanic ash from the Pacific coast to the Midwest, and cause worldwide weather changes from the airborne dust and gases, according to Smith, who described the potential effects in detail in his book Windows Into the Earth, published in 2000.  A modern full-force Yellowstone eruption could kill millions, directly and indirectly, and would make every volcano in recorded human history look minor by comparison."


Luckily, supervolcanoes are a little more polite in giving warning signs than their weeny mountain counterparts.  If Yellowstone starts a rockin', we could have centuries of warnings before things go apocalyptic.  Earthquakes, small eruptions, land bulges and the like should all start appearing well before the big ba da boom.  (Also, eruptions of this magnitude only occur about once in a million years.)


And, because I know you're wondering, you can rest assured that none of the above-named warnings are currently percolating at Yellowstone. So go forth, enjoy your geysers, sweeping vistas, and deplorably long traffic lines.  Yellowstone will wait.

When poetry and science hold hands

I don't know the author of this work, but the limerick is entitled, "Bright."

There was a young lady named Bright,
Who traveled faster than light.
She once went away, in a relative way,
And returned the previous night.


Nerdliture!

Vampire Stars - They vwant to suck your hydrogen.

"Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." - Dr. McCoy.  Well folks, outer space just got a little scarier.  For stars, anyway.  


I was trolling through National Geographic's website yesterday when I stumbled across an article about "vampire stars."  These stars, also known as blue stragglers, "seem to lag in age next to the other stars with which they formed—appearing hotter, and thus younger and bluer.  Astronomers suspect blue stragglers look so youthful because they've stolen hydrogen fuel from other stars, perhaps after colliding into their victims."  


The stars found in the Milky Way's galactic bulge may be siphoning off hydrogen in a different manner.  "[T]he blue stragglers in the galactic bulge may have formed by ripping hydrogen off their companion stars. This possibly occurred either when one star fed off its partner in a two-star system, or perhaps after gravitational interactions in a triple-star system had caused two of its members to merge into one."


Well, I know a thing or two about vampires (having read more Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer than I care to publicly admit), and I gotta say that ripping off a star's fuel source so you can be a hotter, sexier, star sounds pretty vampiric to me.  





(Image courtesy of the Hubble telescope: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020220.html)

Back to the Future with Neuroeconomics

So, here's the deal.  This scientist at Emory did a brain study on some teenagers a few years ago.  Part of the study involved the teenagers listening to pop music while their teeny boppin' brains were being mapped.  Flash forward three years.  This same scientist, a dude named Gregory Burns, heard a song on American Idol and thought to himself, "What if the songs the teens listened to are hits now?"  Sure enough, his small sample study (27 teens) indicated a correlation between brain activity and future hits.  The study wasn't 100% perfect, but it's kind of nifty to think that there's a way our brains can predict a hit before the record companies shove it down your throat.