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.

Synchronize Swatches - er...flashes

Did you know that a species of firefly known as Photinus carolinus can synchronize their little buggy flashes?  Check out this link to Great Smoky Mountains from the National Park Service, which provides some awesome details on the bioluminescent acrobatics:


"No one is sure why the fireflies flash synchronously. Competition between males may be one reason: they all want to be the first to flash. Or perhaps if the males all flash together they have a better chance of being noticed, and the females can make better comparisons. The fireflies do not always flash in unison. They may flash in waves across hillsides, and at other times will flash randomly. Synchrony occurs in short bursts that end with abrupt periods of darkness." 


For those of you near the Great Smoky Mountains, I am truly jealous that you have the chance to see this in real life (CCH, I'm looking at you).  For the rest of us, here's a YouTube video that gives an idea of the kind of light show that Photinus carolinus can put on.  

Enjoy!

Music to Their Ears

With all the extraordinary scientific developments that happen everyday, sometimes we forget about science-past, even when it's still science-present.  For example, how many of you know (without an Internet search!) what The Golden Record is?  


I didn't.  Well, that is to say, I didn't know what it was called.  The Golden Record is the album that was sent into space with Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.  It's purpose was "to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials."  Launched in 1977, both Voyagers are now well on their journeys into the cosmos.  However, we may be in for something of a wait before we get a response from alien life.  Scientists estimate that it will take the Voyager probes approximately 40,000 years to arrive at the nearest star.


While we await a "how do ya do" from our far away neighbors, we might ask ourselves, "Er...so what exactly is on that record?"  The Golden Record contains, amongst other things, "116 pictures and diagrams about our global civilization and our species, greetings, samples of the world's great music, the brain waves of a young woman in love and much else."

I particularly like the list of included musical compositions.  The Golden Record has everything from Bach to Chuck Berry.  Rumor has it that when Bach was suggested for inclusion on the album, Carl Sagan quipped, "Bach?  Now that would just be bragging."*

For more info, check out the links above.  They'll lead you to Nasa's Voyager webpage and Carl Sagan's official website.  Happy nerding!

*I have nothing to back this statement up. That's why it's rumor, people.

The Point of No Return

Or, as some in the astrophysics set like to call it, the event horizon.  What's an "event horizon"?  No, it's not just a terrible movie starring Dr. Grant.  (Sometimes also referred by his real name, Sam Neill.)  Well, when it comes to black holes, it's the line in the sand...er, stars...where once you cross over you're going to get sucked into the black hole.  Yup, it can't be helped.  You're totally, utterly, screwed.

"But Ashley, what's the deal with black holes, and why don't I want to get sucked into one?  Won't I just get transported to some new and far away cosmos, where really hot green-skinned alien chicks are the norm?"  Sadly, that is not the most likely outcome.  Odds are that once you get sucked into that black hole, you're going to become cosmic pulp.  As described by Brian Greene in his book The Elegant Universe,

"[I]f you dropped feet first through the event horizon, as you approached the black hole's center you would find yourself getting increasingly uncomfortable.  The gravitational force of the black hole would increase so dramatically that its pull on your feet would be much stronger that its pull on your head (since in a feet-first fall your feet are always a bit closer than your head to the black hole's center); so much stronger, in fact, that you be stretched with a force that would quickly tear your body to shreds."


The good news is that Mr. Brian Greene was not kidding when he described the shredding speed as quick.  Apparently, you get shredded so fast that your poor little nerves don't have enough time to scream to your brain, "Holy crap, we're being shredded to bits.  There are no hot green alien chicks.  It was all a lie!"

All in all, I feel we've learned a very valuable lesson here.  DON'T cross the event horizon.  ("Important safety tip.  Thanks, Egon.")

I Guess I've Just Got That Type of Face

That is, the type of face that encourages attacks by crows.  About a week ago I was stirred from my morning-walk-to-work-reverie by a crow dive bombing my head.  It didn't rip out my hair or anything.  Just buzzed me a bit.

Yesterday, on the walk home from the office, I was buzzed again by a crow.  It was at the same intersection, but was it the same crow?  We'll never know.  I mean, how do you pick out a crow out from a lineup?  "Yes officer, the one with the feathers - that's the crow that done it!"

Today, as I set off across the intersection, I kept my wits about me.  Sure enough, as I hit the halfway point on the crosswalk, ZOOOOM!

The crow would make two more passes at me before I was out of its attack zone.  It did continue to eye me warily as I progressed down my street back to the relative safety of my apartment.  (I own a cat, so the term "relative safety" is not one I toy with here - she's not called Demon Kitteh for nothing.)

After the attacks had abated I texted one of my friends with my strange story.  His response, "You know crows can remember human faces for up to a year?"  What?!?!?!?!  Well, it's true.  Scientist Bernd Heinrich of the University of Vermont seems to think the behavior is a “byproduct of their acuity" - in particular, their ability to recognize and differentiate between individual members of their own species.  


So what does all of this mean for me?  It's time to buy a helmet. 

Welcome One and All

Hello, my friends, and welcome to Phacton.  What is Phacton, you ask?  It's my little blog project - my daily attempt to learn a bit of science and share it with my friends, loved ones, and (hopefully) strangers.  


As a disclaimer, I am not a scientist.  Sometimes I pretend to be, but that's just to pick up guys at the bar.  (What?!  I live in Seattle.  It's nerds ahoy here.)  Lack of science degree aside, I am just another gal interested in nerdy scientific stuff.  Brought up on a diet of Star Trek, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and Mythbusters, it's only natural that my nerdy inclinations would eventually need an outlet.  


The name of the blog is a mash-up of "photon" and "fact."  (Because, as any good trademark attorney will tell you, the best kinds of trademarks are those devised from made up words.)  I also like the idea of a one-word title.  It'll look better on t-shirts.  You know, if/when I become wildly successful and have Simon and Schuster calling me screaming, "OMG, you are the hottest thing since gamma ray bursts!  We want to publish you NOW!"


But, I digress.  And daydream.  Ooh, look!  A butterfly!  <Puts down laptop, chases silently after newly found lepidopteran friend.>