Do they have oil in Iowa?

Iowa's the corn state, right? I think it's the flat state where Napoleon Dynamite was set, but I'm not too strong on the geography in that region. I know Idaho is potatoes, but when I think of U.S. oil reserves, I know the big players are Texas and Alaska, and I don't think that Iowa contributes much.

It figures that the non-oil-rich states would be the ones working hardest on oil alternatives. After all, there's no incentive to come up with a scientific development that might undermine one of your state's big industries. Anyway, the point is that Iowa State University has come up with an organic asphalt that doesn't require petroleum to produce. They're testing it on one of their bike paths.

I'm happy about the idea, because even if I don't completely embrace all the "peak oil" hysteria, I still think it's important to use renewable resources. Non-renewable resources, by definition, have to run out sometime, after all. An Iowa bike path is a small start, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it catches on.

"All Hands on Deck!"

"Screw that, I'm getting mine!"

At least, that's how the exchange goes in "disturbed ecosystems," according to Georgia Tech Researchers. They were looking into whether organisms all try to work together when their ecosystems are under assault, or if it's dog-eat-dog business as usual. It's probably an area of study that's going to be of relevance for quite a while (I'm looking at YOU, gulf coast!).

It was panic in the petri dish as biologists exposed microbes to acoustic disturbances. They looked at how many were killed off when they were in disturbed environments, how many were killed off when they were competing with other organisms for the same resources, and how many were killed off when competing for resources after their environment was disturbed. Rather than both populations of competing organisms declining equally in the third scenario, one group would wipe the floor with the other.

To rephrase that, creatures that are neck and neck in an environment where they have to fight each other to survive no longer remain neck and neck when their environment gets unusually dangerous. That's when the men are separated from the boys, and one group curb stomps their opponents while they're most vulnerable. This is bad news for species diversity, especially when you consider all the ecosystems that we're disturbing...

Being a Moose Must Suck

Putting aside the problems of not being able to enjoy things like television and the internet, you'd have to spend cold winters outside and worry about getting killed by hunters or inattentive drivers. And then you'd have to be constantly eating to support yourself, considering that moose can weigh around 1,000 pounds. Now imagine what it would be like if you had arthritis. Ugly, right?

It looks like scientists at Michigan Tech are also thinking about what it would be like to be a moose. Unsurprisingly, they also think it would suck, but for different reasons. They're worrying about osteoarthritis.

I can see that. I can only imagine how bad joint pain is when you weigh ten times as much. That's a lot of stress to put on bones. According to them, malnutrition early in life leads to the bone and joint problems later, so I guess their next project should research how they can get moose to eat healthier.

Weed, but not Marijuana

Weed science. Sorry, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, Cornell University is only studying that unwanted crap that grows in your garden, but at least they're taking it to the next level. It's part of their horticulture department.

Cornell is so stoked about studying weeds that in two weeks, they're holding a contest. This "world series of weeds" is supposed to cater to those with "a special interest in weed science" (again: no stoners). The contest involves four categories: identifying weeds, identifying herbicides, calibrating sprayers, and solving farm problems. A whopping 105 students have already registered!

Does anyone else think that this level of specialization is funny? I bust on soil scientists a lot, but the whole field seems kind of nuts. Making your living by studying dirt?

Profits or Predators Don't Matter, We're All Doomed

I don't think this study will change much in the long run, but it turns out that we might not properly understand what drives the commercial fishing industry. The currently accepted theory is that fishermen use a "top down" approach, starting with predators at the top of the food chain (notably tuna and halibut). Once fishing reduces their population and catches dwindle, fishermen move further down the food chain pulling in the fish those predators used to eat until those numbers dwindle, and so on.

According to the University of Washington, it turns out that our motivations may be more economic than evolutionary. Commercial fisheries are (understandably) motivated to catch whatever fish is the most profitable. This means that governments can influence conservation efforts and maintain sustainable levels of fishing by setting price controls on seafood.

Will it work, though? I'm pessimistic. Governments are going to be motivated by what is politically popular, and I don't think it would be possible to arrange for the kind of national cooperation required to have a lasting effect on ocean populations. We should all cultivate a taste for jellyfish, since they're the only thing that has managed to thrive thanks to our efforts.

Oh, Missouri

Why are your kids so filthy? And I ask because I care, not because I want to pass judgment on you or anything. Seriously, your school kids need serious help.

I'm talking about treatment-resistant ringworm. It's a fungus, not a worm, but the fact remains: 7% of your elementary school children are covered in drug-resistant fungus. That's just nasty.

Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics has issued a press release about it, and hopefully people will pay attention. Sharing hats, combs, anything that touches your head? Knock that crap off right away.

Your Love of Crabs Will Kill Us All

Congratulations, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Your research into blue crabs is going to poison the environment and kill us all. Sorry, what I meant to say was that UAB has made an exciting new discovery about a potential food source, and I'm sure that nothing could possibly go wrong!

People eat blue crabs. People only eat blue crabs when they're molting. Molting season happens only the spring and early summer. UAB scientists want to make blue crabs molt on demand so that they can be eaten year round.

I see their point. You can start setting up blue crab operations all along the coast and it will create jobs and make more food available. But is it really a good idea to force those kinds of changes? Especially when you consider that factory farms raising salmon are little more than floating ocean pens; how do you keep this chemical you're giving to the blue crabs from getting into the ocean at large? And then what happens once it starts affecting organisms in the wild?

Oh, I'm sure it'll be nothing to worry about.

Sweeping Carbon Under the Rug

If you can't see it, then it must not be there, right? I used to clean my room by throwing all of my junk in the closet and shutting the door. Now it looks like some scientists are recommending that we do the same thing to fix the environment.

There's a research paper put out by two scientists that thinks we can solve some of our carbon dioxide problems by burying it at sea. Specifically, they think we should start gathering up all of our "crop residue" (stalks of corn and wheat, the leftover bits of the plants that we don't use), tie it up in bundles, and then bury it in the ocean. Problem solved, right?

I think the challenge would be making sure that collecting, bailing, shipping, and burying the residue doesn't generate more carbon dioxide than the alternatives, but they're scientists and they're convinced that it's the way to go.

It was nice knowing you, Frogs.

They're doomed. Doomed because gluttons can't stop eating them. I mean, it's bad enough that their permeable skin puts them at risk of poisoning, but now they're just web-footed cattle.

Endangered web-footed cattle. But who the hell EATS frogs, anyway? The article I read blames school cafeterias (?!) in Europe and Asians in general, but I'm stunned that it's that bad.

Only one thing for it, and that's factory farming. We're doing it with salmon, right? I can't imagine it would be that much harder with frogs.

Bedbugs are BACK, Baby!

That's right, we're living in a Charles Dickens novel. I mean honestly, when was the last time you heard about someone having an infestation of bedbugs in their house? Well, you might hear it more often, since bedbug populations are increasing and they've become resistant to pesticides.

It's actually kind of funny because the study shows that the insect kingdom has its own regional differences. Researchers compared bedbugs found in New York City with bedbugs from Florida. The tough, urban bugs from NYC were better at surviving the pesticide than the softer, weaker bedbugs from the more hospitable climate of Florida.

I actually had a coworker come back from a trip recently and he thought he had picked up some bedbugs at a shady hotel he was staying in. It turns out that they weren't bedbugs (the exterminator didn't know what the hell they were), but he had done a lot of reading about them in the meantime. Have you ever gone to a party where the host puts all the coats in a big pile on the bed? That's what my parents used to do when they had company, but it turns out that it's a terrible idea. My friend was telling me that bedbugs can get into your clothing, so they can either move from an infected mattress into the pile of coats to get taken to all the guests' houses, or from one guest's coat into the mattress and all of the other guests' coats. It makes me cringe just thinking about it!

Of Butterflies and Bootleggers

First, do you call it a bootlegger turn or a handbrake turn? You know, that move where you yank on the emergency brake while turning the wheel, so that you can whip your car around 180 degrees (hopefully without flipping over)? It's a staple of a lot of racing video games.

I've heard it called a bootlegger turn because the mobsters running illegal liquor during prohibition would use it to escape police roadblocks. I don't know how effective it was, or how often they used it, but it's a fun mental image. Also, it was probably easier to do back then, given the low top speeds that cars used to have.

It turns out that butterflies and bootleggers may have more in common than you'd think. They both attempt erratic, high-speed maneuvers to evade capture. Butterflies may have developed their hind wings to make fast, tight turns in the air to keep from getting eaten. The wings help them move quickly and erratically. That's what they think at Cornell, although it's kind of a shame that they had to go around clipping wings off of butterflies to prove their theory.

Your Potato Children Will Be Deformed

Plants have reproductive organs. Who knew? Well, everyone who had to sit through high school biology, but who remembered? And/or who cared?

Soil scientists, that's who. Specifically, agronomists. And not just because they have some kind of sick plant fetish. They're not just daydreaming about the private parts of plants, they're trying to make the world a better place. And this time, someone finally thought of the (plant) children.

Concerned agronomists have determined that while herbicide tests consider whether the plant-killing substances will kill "good" plants (read: the ones that aren't weeds), the tests don't verify that the herbicides don't accidentally sterilize the good plants.

I'm all for improved testing to make sure that we can keep enjoying future generations of plants like potatoes, corn, and soybeans. However, I do think that the language in their press release is dry, densely scientific, and a little obsessed with reproductive organs.

Is Your Pig Farm Too Gassy?

No, that's not a euphemism.

Do you know what happens in pig finishing barns? I'm pretty sure you don't want to know. And I like bacon too much to ever find out. Still, I guess that they're pretty stinky places.

A lot of time and effort has gone into researching the methane and carbon dioxide (read: pig stink) given off by these finishing barns, and the best ways to reduce them (no, raising fewer pigs was not an option). It turns out that sprinkling vegetable oil actually helps reduce the omissions, while essential oil misting and misting of essential oil with water do jack squat--no surprise, given how "essential oils" seems like just a phrase used to bump up the cost of shampoo and skin lotion.

The research is all thanks to a study by those unsung heroes of the academic community: soil scientists.

Thank god for soil scientists. I mean, they're the ones who first realized that the robot uprising may be led by plants. I think we can all agree that we need more of them.

Anthropologists Check Out Ladybutts

At least, that's how they do it in Utah. Seriously. do you spend a lot of time worrying about a lady's waist-to-hip ratio? Because anthropologists in Utah do. But they're a little hung up on reality versus fantasy.

First, they state that men prefer a hip-to-waist ratio of 0.7 when selecting a mate (which "makes perfect sense, according to evolutionary psychologists"). Then they note that the average waist-to-hip ratio for women is higher than 0.8. Dedicated couch potato that I am, this is the part where I'd say "Men want what they can't have, end of story."

But the anthropologists at the University of Utah wouldn't let it rest there. Instead, they've released this study declaring that the larger-than-desired ratios are actually desired in some parts of the world. According to them, narrow waists and wide hips show a predominance of estrogen, making for more dependent women who need to be provided for. Wider waists are associated with an increased level of androgens, meaning that the women are more assertive, dominant, and willing to take initiative. Then they go on to say that in cultures that value submissive women (like Greece, Japan, and Portugal), men prefer their women to have narrow waists (and so they try to make themselves that way), but some cultures value women who can fend for themselves and their women are correspondingly wide of waist.

Honestly, does anyone really work that way? I mean, aside from sitcoms where the guy's mother makes some crack about his girlfriend's "child-bearing hips," are there people out there who are evaluating the waist-to-hip ratio of women and basing their decision to get involved in a relationship with them solely on that information?

In completely unrelated news, check back this afternoon! I'm rolling out an entirely new series for this site, and I'm very excited about it. The first installment goes up later today.

You Can Finally Rest Easy

Back in 1936, unfettered by the demands on his time that would have been posed by cable television, internet pornography, and the XBox, Sir James Gray had nothing better to think about than dolphins. He wondered how they were able to swim at speeds upwards of 20 mph (no, I refuse to convert that into kilometers, you Europeans are on your own), given their muscle mass.

It sounds cute, but honestly, I'm not sure why anyone cared. They already had that staple of faux-science small talk, the old saw about how a bumblebee is aerodynamically impossible, and should not be able to fly, but I guess that everyone's looking for a new gem of useless trivia that they can trot out when they need something to talk about but want to sound smart.

So the dolphins, right. Rensselaer Polytechnic actually started studying the whole dolphin business. I'm not sure why they needed to; it has already been proven that dolphins can swim fast, why do we need to study whether or not it should be possible for them to swim fast? I guess that's why I'm not a scientist.

Now, more than 70 years later, "Gray's Paradox" has been solved. "The short answer," said the professor who led the project, "is that dolphins are simply much stronger than Gray or many other people ever imagined.”

Well, I never. What are the odds of that?

Are You Going to Church Today?

I hope so. Not because of the whole "observing the birth of Christ" thing, either. I hope you go because it will make you 20% less likely to die.

Researchers, who had to roll up their sleeves and grit their teeth to Do What Must Be Done for Science, studied 92,395 post-menopausal women. In their studies, they found that women who regularly attented religious services could cut their "risk of mortality" by up to 20%. I like those odds. I'm one of those people who goes to church on holidays anyway, but with news like this, I might want to go more often!

Wait, let me think about that. No, it doesn't seem like you get some kind of "frequent attendance" bonus that reduces your risk of death even further, and I am pretty lazy. I also like sleeping in on Sundays. Maybe I'll keep my churchgoing habits unchanged.

Anyway, Merry Christmas*, everyone! (I know I said it yesterday, but I'm saying it again today. I'm positively overcome with holiday spirit!)

*No, I'm not being insensitive to those observing other holidays. In this case, I am someone who celebrates Christmas, using the traditional phrase of my religion for recognizing the holiday. I am also still a little drunk giddy with the tidings of the season.

Sea Worms and Shattered Faces

If I lived near a beach, I'd spend most of my time walking along it and looking for crap that I could use as a makeshift glue to hold things in place inside my body. Wouldn't you? I mean, what else is there worth doing at a beach?

Sadly, any breakthroughs I wished to make in the glamorous field of seaborne adhesives look like they've already been made. The University of Utah has been studying Sandcastle worms, which live in intertidal surf (naturally, Utah would be the source of that kind of research, due to its proximity to the oceans). The worms build their homes by gluing together whatever materials are on hand, be they eggshells, beads, sand, etc.

The glue is worth studying because most current glues don't stick to wet surfaces. How often do you think surgeons deal with dry surfaces when they're trying to reconstruct broken bones? Since current glues are useless in the bloody environs of the human body, this new worm glue might help hold small bone fragments in place while they heal (which is necessary because screws and wires aren't great for smaller bone pieces).

It's premature to celebrate, though. The synthetic worm glue that researchers have synthesized only performs 37% as well as commercial superglue. I'd say that some more research is in order.

This article was fun to read for a few reasons, but mostly because of the phrase "shattered faces."

Great Leapers, or Greatest Leapers?

Dalhousie University (remember them? Famous for their groundbreaking study of psychopaths?) has crowned a new highest jumper of the insect kingdom: the spit bug.

Have you ever seen spitbug nests? Maybe you have and didn't recognize them. It looks like someone hocked a big loogie on a plant (hence the name). Those bubbles? The spitbug blows them out its rear to build a frothy nest.

Anyway, as nasty as they are, they're apparently incredibly high jumpers. They can leap 100 of their own body lengths in a single jump. That's like a person jumping 600 feet.

It's supposed to be a defense mechanism to escape birds. It builds up muscle power and --KAPOW-- jumps away at 13 feet per second. Pretty impressive.

Cybernetic Tiger Lillies

Are they still cyborgs if they're part machine, part plant? I ask because that's going to be the wave of the future, if our discarded nanotechnology ends up in plants. Now we not only have to worry about robot insurrection, but rhododendron ascension as well.

The University of Delaware has proven that plants can absorb nanoparticles into their tissues. With a little work, they found that pumpkin seeds were able to absorb iron oxide nanoparticles. Naturally, it was a soil physicist who did the study.

The alarm they're raising is that if the nanoparticles can get into plants, then other animals that eat those plants will be passing the particles along the food chain. That's not good news, but neither is the thought of these plants getting hold of advanced nanotechnolgy and using it to become superplants. Then we're screwed.

What's REALLY Hiding in all that Dirt?

I don't know. Do you? Should either of us care?

The Soil Science Society of America thinks we should care, and want to know why we aren't doing our part to learn about dirt. They've gone so far as to investigate why there is a declining number of soil science students in America, and wrote it up in the Journal of Natural Resources and Life Science Education.

The lack of interest is understandable. I mean, it's dirt, right? How exciting is it going to get? If these people want to entice college students to spend more time studying the soil, they've got their work cut out for them. I have no idea how I'd make the study of dirt sound exciting. Do you?

Wait, maybe I have an idea after all. Some of the spy shows I watch have the secret agents claiming to be soil scientists as a cover identity. Maybe they could start telling people that soil sciences is what the future James Bonds of the world are choosing for a major? Maybe not.