When Color Blindness is a Good Thing

Research at the University of Münster, Germany, showed that in close martial arts matches, competitors wearing red were awarded ~13% more points compared to if they had a blue uniform.

The discovery is yet another in a string of discoveries that reveal color can affect the human mind. Red, in particular, has been studied and is believed to be perceived as a dominant color, causing the observer to perform adversely.

You can also participate in the study - see here.

But don't think the color of your uniform will make you Bruce Lee. As researcher Robert Barton points out, "If you're rubbish, a red shirt won't stop you from losing, but when fights were relatively symmetrical, colour tipped the balance."

Dirty Money

A study presented at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting stated that 90% of U.S. paper currency is contaminated with cocaine!

This doesn't mean every bill was used to snort cocaine, as most of the paper bills had minuscule amounts. Some money was used in drug deals, but the majority was contaminated while in banks as cocaine residue was left behind on the money counter from the dirty bills.

With experts saying bills can carry bacteria from feces and urine, this is just one more reason to wash your hands after touching money.

Fixing a Broken Heart ... Through the Stomach

Scientists are looking to the stomach to help treat those suffering from heart attacks. Scientists used stem cell patches of lab-grown heart cells onto rats' stomachs' fatty tissue - which is rich in blood vessels and has previously been used to regenerate other organs. After a week, they transferred the patches to the rats’ damaged heart. Experiments showed that the patches did indeed improve the heart's condition.

Still, much work is needed as the procedure is considered too risky for elderly patients because of the extensive amount of surgery time required.

Not That Useless

Long considered to be a useless appendage, scientists are now discovering that the appendix has a purpose and is far more prevalent in nature than once thought.

Scientists have discovered that the appendix can be a source of good bacteria to repopulate the gut after a severe case of diarrhea. The appendix can also help make, direct and train white blood cells.

More astonishing is the fact that scientists now consider the appendix to have been around for ~80 million years. If true, this means that the view of the appendix being a vestigial organ (an organ rendered useless due to the ongoing phenomenon of evolution) would be incorrect. Moreover, scores of other animals also possess this appendage, oftentimes aiding in digestion.

New Findings in Man's Ancestry

Until recently, the oldest known human hair was ~9,000 years old. An excavation in South Africa, however, revealed a hair ~200,000 years old! The hair was found in a fossilized hyena latrine of all places.

What is Eye Color?

It may be man's most attention-grabbing quality, but what really is eye color?

In short, eye color is the expression of a combined number of genes. Eye color expression is like screwing in a certain color light bulb to emit a certain color of light. If you replace the bulb with a bulb of another color, the emitted light's color will change.

Eye color is not a blend of the parents' colors. Each parent has two pairs of genes on each chromosome, all of which can effect the ultimate color expression in a myriad of ways. Brown eye color is the dominant gene, needing only one copy to be expressed, while blue (recessive) requires both copy's. However, no one gene controls eye color - the OCA2 gene, controlling the amount of melanin pigment produced, accounts for ~74% of variation in eye color. Other genes effect the OCA2 gene's expression.

Geneticist Dr Rick Sturm states, "We believe ... there are two major genes - one that controls for brown or blue, and one that controls for green or hazel - and others that modify this trait". This means that brown-eyed parents can have a blue-eyed child, and vice versa.

For New Yorkers

Well, actually for anyone interested in New York City.

This month's National Geographic feature article explains what New York City was like before it was New York City.

There is also a Wildlife Conservation Society effort, dubbed the Mannahatta Project, devoted to discovering the origins of Manhattan.

Sonic Boom

If you've played Street Fighter, you know that Guile created sonic boom's to attack an opponent.

In real life, aircrafts, and humans, can in fact break the sound barrier.

Breaking the sound barrier not only creates an audible effect, known as a 'sonic boom', but also a visible effect, seen in the picture above. When an aircraft is moving through the sky, it is pushing air out of the way (creating pressure waves) much like a boat which causes ripples in the water as it moves.

When moving at, and then exceeding, the speed of sound, the pressure waves the aircraft creates compress into one huge shock wave because the air cannot move out of the way of the aircraft fast enough. Since air always has tiny droplets of water floating around, breaking the sound barrier creates a compressed cone of water vapor. That is, during a sonic boom, you can actually see the effects of sound!

It is theorized that certain dinosaurs, by whipping their massive tails, could also break the sound barrier.

I mentioned in the beginning that humans can also break the sound barrier. It is true. Whenever one cracks a whip, you are causing the end of the whip to move faster than the speed of sound, thus creating a 'cracking' noise.

Here's a video of a plane breaking the sound barrier. And one more.

Clear Head

It may seem to be something out of a science fiction movie, but the Pacific barreleye fish, and its transparent head, is 100% real.

It's transparent dome allows the barreleye to see a broader range of its surroundings. The dome, bringing in even more light, compensates for the barreleye's lack of cone cells, which help an animal see in well lit areas. Aside from the dome, the barreleye also has an exceptionally high level of rod cells, which help animals see in poorly lit areas. The dome also protects protects the fish's eyes from stinging cells of siphonophores, whose food it steals.

Here's the first ever video of a living barreleye.

Dancing Bird

Humans have been long thought to be the only animals capable of dancing. But research concludes that Snowball (a cockatoo) can synchronize his movements to musical beats. The findings are remarkable as nonhuman animals were previously unknown to be able to synchronize movement to any kind of sound.

Scientists believe the cockatoo's ability lies in its vocal learning capabilities. Like humans, cockatoos can imitate complex sounds, requiring a tight integration of auditory and motor systems. If correct, scientists can learn more from performing studies on other species with similar voice learning capabilities (e.g. seals and dolphins).

His favorite song is the Backstreet Boys 'Everybody'.

Snowball can also dance to Michael Jackson, Queen, Ringo Starr, among others.

Diesel Beetle

In boxing, there is the concept of the best boxer 'pound for pound'. Well, ounce for ounce, the rhinocerous beetle (coming in at less than 1 ounce) is the strongest animal in the world.

After reading a report in the Guiness Book of World Records that the beetle could lift 850 times its own weight, tests were performed at UC Berkeley to determine how strong this beetle was. While falling short of Guiness' claim, the beetle still lifted 100 times its own weight (equivalent to a 100 lb man carrying almost 2 hummers). A weight lifting champion can only lift 17 times his weight in one lift.

Just as astonishing, while carrying 30% of its weight, the beetle did not tire even after half an hour (This would be like a 150 lb man carrying a Cadillac for the same period). During this period, the beetle's only consumed 4 times the oxygen of normal metabolic rate - what this means is that even at 50% their own weight, the beetle doesn't really seem affected by the weight!

Scientists are now testing the exoskeleton, and more importantly the beetle's muscles, to determine the reason for the beetle's enormous strength.

Killing Machines

At 20+ feet and 4,500 pounds, one would think the great white shark is a clumsy killer, relying on brute force to hunt. Instead, with acute color vision, the largest scent-detecting organs of any shark, and sensitive electroreceptors it senses environmental cues beyond human experience. Using optimal foraging theory, scientists think that great whites are extremely picky eaters, usually rejecting low-fat prey to maximize every hunt - getting the maximum bang for each bite. This explains why great whites readily attack seals, but avoid penguins and seagulls. Most great whites attack during high tide, where seals enter and exit the water. Relying on stealth, great whites attack from the deep and usually within 2 hours of sunrise.

What about attacks on humans? Are we, like seals, a favorite for sharks? People are surprised to learn that sharks really don't like to eat humans. Of the few attacks that do occur, 85% of victims survive, and there is almost no case of a shark wholly consuming a human.

OH, almost forgot - here's an amazing video of a great white literally jumping out of the water to attack a seal.