Garlic Breath? Drink Milk

The Journal of Food Science writes that milk consumption before or with garlic consumption can reduce concentrations of compounds responsible for ‘garlic breath’. Drinking milk after ingestion had a lower counteractive effect.

Taking in food/drink with a high water and fat content (e.g. whole milk) is the key. Many fruits, vegetables, and beverages have eliminated elements responsible for "garlic breath" but milk helps counteract one of the major components - diallyl disulfide.

Video of Tornado ... From Inside

Check out this video from inside a tornado.

Fire Tornado!

Yes, it's just like it sounds - a tornado of fire.

Fire tornado's arise when dry air currents literally lift fire. They consist of a whirlwind of hot air around or within the the fire itself.

Check out the video.

More Zombies In Nature

I previously blogged about real cases of zombies in nature. There's at least one I missed.


A parasitic fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) infects a carpenter ant and takes over its brain, leading the ant to bite into the vein that runs down the center of a leaf on the underside. The ant dies but the fungus takes the nutrients to grow a stalk out of the ant’s body and release spores to create the next generation. This cycle is at least 48 million years old.

Don't Front If You're A Wasp!

When female paper wasps fight for nest dominance, they judge each other's fighting ability through facial patterns: the more fragmented the pattern, the tougher they are. You would think a wasp would cheat and fake the facial pattern ... but no (video).

Researchers painted weaker wasps to look more fearsome and pitted them against a rival they had never met before. Submitting at first, the dominant rival then attacked - and attacked with more energy than normal. Researchers also gave weaker wasps hormones to artificially enhance their fighting prowess - but the results were the same.

Results demonstrate that wasps whose facial pattern doesn't match their true "manliness" are severely punished - which is why they haven't evolved a strategy of lying and cheating to gain an advantage.

Raven Defies Natural Selection

National Geographic presents an experiment in which a raven is put on a branch while its food is hung from a string. Researchers wanted to see if the raven could think through the process and pull the string up to itself to obtain the food.

It did.

The problem is that:

1) The behavior was not learned as the researchers did not teach the raven the skill
2) Natural Selection does not provide the answer as the scenario would not have occurred in the wild
3) Chance could not provide the answer because there were too many individual steps

Thus, the ability to actively think through solving this problem must be an innate quality. But for a bird without a cerebral cortex - instrumental in creative thought - to perform such a function is nothing short of magical.

Aesop's Fable - A Reality

Aesop tells the story of a thirsty crow who comes upon a pitcher with water that is beyond its reach. The crow uses pebbles to raise the water level and gets his drink. It was just a fable ... until last year.

Current Biology reports that 4 captive rooks (similar to a crow) were forced to decide how to raise the water level so that a floating worm was reachable. All 4 rooks solved the problem with precisely the number of stones needed. 3 rapidly learned to use large stones over small ones and understood that sawdust cannot be manipulated in the same manner as water.

The discovery is mind-blowing. It furthers the notion that tool usage is a flexible ability in animals, and holds implications for the evolution of tool use and animal cognition. It also demonstrates certain animals' ability to solve complex physical problems via causal and analogical reasoning. For the rook to do this without a cerebral cortex - instrumental for creative thought - leaves one in awe.

See video #1 & #2 of the study

Rubix Cube - Solved

Ever wonder the most efficient way to solve a Rubix Cube? Me neither.

While humans generally require around 40 steps, an international research team - with nothing better to do - discovered the lowest number of moves required to solve the cube. It only took 30 years of research and a few Google super computers.

The answer (drum roll please): 20 moves.

Great.

Check out the equally exciting video of the world record for solving a Rubix Cube - 7.08 seconds.

Cool Video

Here's an accelerated video of a vine finding a base to latch on to.

Male Bias During Lectures

Physics World reports that there are fewer women physicists, and in senior positions, partly because of an unconscious bias.

Researchers trained four actors — two men, two women — to give a 10-minute physics lecture. Real physics classes watched the lecturers. Male and female students gave male lecturers higher ratings - regarding knowledge of the material and use of equipment - than female lecturers. Male students, in particular, overwhelmingly rated the male lecturers as superior.

If the bias does exist, it explains why women also generally receive lower wages and smaller start-up grants.

Accent Affects Trust

The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology reports that listeners were less likely to believe speakers with foreign accents. The heavier the accent, the less the trust.

Depression Affects Vision

Biological Psychiatry reports that depressed people have much lower retinal responses —even if they’re on antidepressants. The worse the depression, the worse the retina's performance. Also, the retinal reaction itself was a good diagnostic of depression.

So the world really can look "blehh" to a depressed person.