Science Cafe Videos!!!

The videos from the first Science Cafe are available on our Youtube page!
http://www.youtube.com/user/itsnotgrossitsscienc?feature=mhsn

If you watch any amount of TV or have an internet connection you have probably seen the video below. If not, do yourself a favor an see it now. I’ll wait…….

All done? Good, let's move forward. I was really struck by how angry this ibex seemed. I don’t speak Spanish so I can only assume that this reporter is saying something inappropriate about the Ibexes mother.

 I have always been suspicious of anything goatish (Ibex belong to the same genus, Capra, as goats), and this video seemed to confirm all my fears.  But being a good scientist, I decided to dig a little deeper and look into these cloven-hooved monsters, sorry animals.

Ibex are not all spit mad maniacs thirsting for sweet human flesh. The spitting behavior is usually used as communication between members of a group. Spitting can establish and maintain a hierarchy within the group, as well as solve minor squabbles between members.  Imagine using this at your next lab/work meeting, I am right now >>smile<<. The projectile itself usually consists of air and a little saliva. The reporter should count himself lucky though, the Ibex could have dredged up a little stomach acid if he really wanted to. 

Skye

Blood Sucking Freaks! 4 of 4

OK, so they won’t kill me, but I want them all to DIE!!!!!!!

                Slow your roll killer, we need to talk about a few things. The problem here is that we are not only dealing with bedbugs we are dealing with MUTANT bedbugs, which are immune to our measly chemical defenses. At one time we had almost eradicated bedbugs through the use of pesticides. The problem of using pesticides is that it gives natural selection a chance to find resistances hiding out in the populations DNA. A senior researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (shout out) John Clark and colleagues believe they might have found the gene mutation that has allowed these crafty bugs have to evolve a resistance to the pesticides we use to control them. The traditional pesticides used on these animals attacks sodium channels in nerves. Sodium channels help move nerve impulses down the axons of nerves, and blocking them can cause paralasis and death. But, Clark and colleagues have found that New York bedbugs have mutations that prevent the poison from interfering with nerves, causing them to be up to 264 times more resistant to pesticides than non-mutated populations. And the resistance is spreading, thanks New York. This may sound grim, but like bacterial resistance to antibiotics, it provides a pretty cool opportunity to observe how human intervention can affect evolution.



When pesticides failed to kill them, New York looked overseas for help against the mutant insects.



Lessons Learned. 

So that’s bed bugs, I think we all learned some very important lessons:

1.       Bedbugs sparkle in sunlight, if you squint just right.

2.       Bedbugs are nature’s tiny ninjas.

3.       Bedbugs make bad boyfriends. But more importantly Isabella Rosallini both frightens and intrigues me.

4.       Although Bedbugs want to drink your blood they don’t want to kill you.

5.       Finally, by playing God we have created a race of super mutants.

Thanks for reading, and go wash your sheets.

Skye

Science Cafe!

Be sure to check out the Science Cafe page for all the info on our October 3rd, 2011 Science Cafe: "Out of the Dark: Demystifying Bats".

Welcome Back It's Not Gross It's Science

Hi all!
After a brief summer hiatus, we are back with weekly science updates. We have also expanded and added a Facebook page to keep you up to date with all of our science doings. We're glad to be back for science fun!
OEB Grads.

How Birds Can Make Better Lasers

#NatureAndTechnology
When we think of parrots and toucans, images of bright and vivid feathers come to mind. It comes as no surprise, then, that these vibrantly colored feathers have attracted the attention of physicists trying to create a better kind of laser. Professor Hui Cao from Yale is at the head of this research group looking towards bird feathers for inspiration.

In the simplest form possible, laser technology involves bouncing light back and forth between two mirrors. In between the two mirrors lies a gain medium that amplifies a particular wavelength of light, and after many passes through the medium, the light gains power and is projected outward in a laser beam. Large amounts of research have gone into maximizing the number of times light bounces back and fourth inside the gain medium, thereby creating a more powerful laser output.

One technique involves drilling holes in specialized glass, creating an array of holes in random positions. When light travels through these randomly placed holes in the glass, it can bounce back and fourth many times between holes, and effectively gain a large amount of power before being emitted as as laser beam. The downside to this approach is that the process is very random and greatly inefficient. Here’s where the birds come in.

Brightly colored bird feathers take advantage of bouncing and amplifying light. In the feathers of brightly colored birds, air pockets exist at the nano scale level and bounce light back and fourth many times before being emitted out through the air pockets. Additionally, the air pockets in bird feathers are specifically tuned to amplify the wavelengths of light most characteristic of their feathers. It seems that though the position and placement of these air pockets appear random, at a smaller scale the air pockets are ordered in a very specific way. Professor Cao found this method of light amplification was not only efficient, but also modifiable. By changing the distance between the holes, the research team could change the color of light being amplified by the system. By studying a natural system of light amplification, Professor Cao and her research team have found a way to create more powerful and controllable lasers.

For more information, check out the publication here:

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v106/i18/e183901

-Michael Rosario

First Science Cafe

First Science Cafe, a set on Flickr.

Pictures of the first ever Science Cafe are up!!!