Geometry in Nature

Many things in the natural world have a simple underlying mathematics, and we often miss it unless our eyes are open; but the symmetry is always there.

We are all familiar with the interlocking hexagons of a honeycomb, made from equilateral triangles.











But there is another mathematical trick which Nature uses in some surprising ways. The shape of a snail's shell, the scales on a pine cone, the whorls in a flower, the breeding of rabbits (it's true, see below). Much more, and it all follows a simple mathematical sequence -
The Fibonacci Series.

It goes like this:

You start with nothing, zero
0
along comes a 'first', the number one
0, 1
add them together 0+1=1
0, 1, 1
then add 1+1 to get 2
0, 1, 1, 2
keep adding the last two numbers, so 1+2=3
0, 1, 1, 2, 3
then 2+3=5
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5
and so on...
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144...

If you divide each number in the sequence by the previous one* you get increasingly more accurate approximations to one particular number...

1÷1=1
2÷1=2
3÷2=1.5
5÷3=1.6667
8÷5=1.6
13÷8=1.6250
21÷13=1.6154
34÷21=1.6190
55÷34=1.6176
89÷55=1.6182
144÷89=1.6180...

That number is the Golden Ratio, that pleasing blend of height and width beloved of artists and architects for millennia. But Nature has been using it for far longer:

Take the Golden Ratio and make a triangle where, if the base equals 1 then the long sides are 1.6180. A Golden Triangle, Now let's play by putting them together...










And again you can join the dots to find a snail shell:

Now watch this short animated video by Cristóbal Vila which explains things in a beautiful way.

Nature by Numbers [3:44]


Oh! I promised rabbits, here you go...

Fibonacci with RABBITS!!!! [1:57]

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*Avoiding division by zero (1÷0 is not infinity, it is just not a number, it's undefined and so it's the worst approximation you can possibly get) Grow into these trousers... >>

Molecular Visualizations of DNA

A great animation of DNA at a molecular level. The video shows how DNA is packed into chromosomes and how it is replicated (they should have done replication first because it's only then that chromosomes develop, just prior to cell division). The video goes on to describe the transcription of DNA to RNA and the translation of RNA into protein.

As it's such a short video, aspects like the control of gene expression and the post-transcriptional modification of RNA (splicing) are missed out, along with many other factors and nuances. I guess the 'scorpions tail thing' at 3:36 is the promoter region, it's in about the right place upstream.

Nothing in biology is as simple as it looks, but this is a good effort to explain basic priciples.

Molecular Visualizations of DNA [7:47]


Right at the end it sadly peters out. It's as if they were going to talk about sickle cell anaemia, which is caused by a mutation in the gene for haemoglobin, but they never finished the film. Grow into these trousers... >>

Continuing the feeling of my last post

I present without comment:

Everything you always wanted to know about female ejaculation (but were afraid to ask)

and

Six things science has revealed about the female orgasm

Thank you - you're welcome. Grow into these trousers... >>

10 things you didn't know about...

...orgasm, so if there are children around you'll know what I mean. The topic comes up lots in this next video.

Watch; then go read Bee's comment at Cosmic Variance.

Grow into these trousers... >>

LEGS CROSSED - EYES WATERING!

Erm?

"Case Presentation: A 14 year old boy came to us with complaints of pain, difficulty in voiding with dribbling of urine and subsequently developed acute urinary retention of 24 hours duration. On further questioning he gave an interesting history. While he was cleaning the fish tank in his house, he was holding a fish in his hand and went to the toilet for passing urine. While he was passing urine, the fish slipped from his hand and entered his urethra..."

Unusual Foreign Body In Urinary Bladder: A Case Report.
Vezhaventhan, G. and Jeyaraman, R. The Internet Journal of Urology, 5:2, 41 (2007).

According to couriermail.com.au:


"The fish the urologists removed, which Practical Fishkeeping believes to be a small member of the Betta genus, measured 2cm long and 1.5cm wide."


Yeah, sure; many people urinate whilst holding their pet fish! But wait - if you follow this link to The Internet Journal of Urology there is an endoscopic video of said fish, in situ. It sure looks like a Betta but with much caudal fin damage. Presumably due to the last frantic efforts to get the damn thing out again.

Kinda reminds me of this.

And, of course, the candiru:


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Via Pharyngula and Rev. BigDumbChimp. Grow into these trousers... >>

Imagine being able to fly

Imagine having a beak you can control with hypodermic precision.

"A hummingbird flaps its wings up to 70 times per second; its heart rate can reach 1,260 beats per minute."

That's 21 heartbeats per second.

Time Warp: Hummingbird

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Via LGF. Grow into these trousers... >>

Testing Intelligent Design creationism

YouTube video makers C0nc0rdance and Thunderf00t throw down a challenge to advocates of ID: "find a gene without an evolutionary heritage", let's say that again "look for a single gene that shows signs of non-evolutionary origin."

Shortened version: Put up or STFU.

Challenging the Discovery Institute to Discover

I doubt this is restricted to followers of Christianity. Anyone who believes that evolution does not occur and that speciation is divinely guided, supernatural or magic may post their hypothesis on YouTube. Or feel free to make a suggestion below, I will forward your idea to C0nc0rdance.
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HT PZ Myers. Grow into these trousers... >>

Isn't nature wonderful?

And I thought worming my cats was a chore!

'The 7 Most Horrifying Parasites on the Planet'.












Be sure not to miss page 2.
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Via ismellarat via Debunking Christianity. Grow into these trousers... >>

Swine flu - a world map

I'm not sure how accurate the data is but it gives a good impression of the problem. For the real low-down visit Tara Smith at Aetiology.


Note: all influenza cases are shown by default. Click on "Swine Flu H1N1" (top left).

Via HealthMap.org Grow into these trousers... >>

Worried about the flu?

At the very least get a hankie!


EMBED-Sneezing In Ultra Slow Motion - Watch more free videos Grow into these trousers... >>

What Darwin's theory tells us about ourselves

Many thanks to the Atheist Media Blog for posting this oldish (1998) but remarkable discussion on the meaning of evolution as applied to humanity.

Covering ground from evolutionary development to the appreciation of music this round-table talk gets a triple AAA from me.

Chaired by Melvyn Bragg, historian and broadcaster - now Lord Bragg and Chancellor of the University of Leeds.

On the panel are:
Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at MIT - now at Harvard.
Meredith Small, Cornell professor of anthropology.
Steve Jones, biologist and a professor of genetics and head of the biology department at University College London.
Sir Jonathan Miller, theatre and opera director, neurologist, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor (if you are unfamiliar with Miller, watch this).

The Darwin Debate (1/5)


The debate continues below the belt:

The Darwin Debate (2/5)


The Darwin Debate (3/5)


The Darwin Debate (4/5)


The Darwin Debate (5/5)
Grow into these trousers... >>

Bald Eagles on camera

The Hancock Wildlife Foundation has live webcams of nesting Bald Eagles in British Columbia, Canada.

There are two eggs in this nest and they must be close to hatching, that will be worth seeing. Note, the cameras can be a couple of seconds out of sync.




There are more eagle cams at the Hancock Wildlife Foundation and the Seattle Times has a news report.
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via GrrlScientist.
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UPDATE: I had missed this earlier but the Sydney new nest has chicks. I've seen 2 but the forum says there are 3! Grow into these trousers... >>

Bacteria

Love 'em or hate 'em, they are as much a part of us as the skin, liver, brain and gonad cells which carry our own DNA.

Watch Bonnie Bassler speaking at TED:

Discovering bacteria's amazing communication system

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via Pharyngula. Grow into these trousers... >>

A Darwinian Easter egg

"An egg collected by Charles Darwin during his voyage on HMS Beagle has been rediscovered at Cambridge University." - BBC News

Photo credit: The Guardian; The University of Cambridge.

You may ask what kind of bird lays that kinder egg? (And is the toy inside a bit of a yolk?)

So I tried to find out.

News reports say the egg's origin was traced back to a friend and contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Newton, a Professor of Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge. His notes reveal:

"One egg, received through Frank Darwin, having been sent to me by his father who said he got it at Maldonado (Uruguay) and that it belonged to the Common Tinamou of those parts."

Frank Darwin was, I guess, Francis Darwin, Charles' third son, who received the egg from his father and passed it to Newton for the collection at Cambridge, where it lay in obscurity till earlier this year.

Now, the tinamous are a large family of South American birds with 47 recognised species, though none are called the 'Common Tinamou'. There is a tinamou named Dawin's Nothura, Nothura darwinii, but this is an Andean species and not from Uruguay where the egg was collected.

The Tinamou Research Group website notes two Uruguayan species: the Red-winged Tinamou, Rhynchotus rufescens, and the smaller Spotted Tinamou, Nothura maculosa. The video in the BBC report shows two rather moth-eaten museum bird specimens and doesn't identify them, but the Spotted Tinamou seems to match well in size and colouration.

Nothura maculosa. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

The eggs too match with Darwin's:

Nothura maculosa - eggs. Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

At the Internet Bird Collection you can watch a couple of videos of Spotted Nothura, and at the foot of that page is a recording of it's song. The BBC quote from Darwin's notes that the bird had a "high shrill chirp". Ear piercing I would have said.

So have I identified the correct species? I don't know, I'm not an ornithologist and comments are welcome. Seeing as how they went to the trouble of videoing the museum specimens, the BBC could have identified it and saved all the hassle but then I may not have had such an enjoyable, two-cup coffee break this morning.

Happy Easter! Grow into these trousers... >>

A nice synopsis - Evolution/Creation

Via LGF, I was tipped off about this video on The Basics of Evolution. It's from QualiaSoup, a YouTuber who deserves more attention. He's not bad.

It's a good presentation of evolutionary biology with the bonus of clarifying the misconceptions of some religious points of view.

Evolution


For those unfamiliar with the banana and crocoduck arguments, there are further educational videos below the belt:

Do not feel obliged to watch all of this, but:

See ~3:50 for the hilarious crocoduck
God must exist... because the crocoduck doesn't!


And look ~2:30 in for cola cans and bananas (FFS have they never heard of the Cavendish?)
The Way Of The Master : Atheism (Part 1 of 3)


You may now feel the need to wash your brain. This is perfectly normal!

BTW, my earlier thought that the Rational Response Squad had been pulled from YouTube was misinformed and JREF have been reinstated (thought it's still unclear to me why they were pulled in the first place - a copyright issue?). Grow into these trousers... >>

Gullibility as a human trait?

I just watched some great videos of chimpanzees over at Afarensis, take time to watch them all too. Myself, I am amazed at chimps' intelligence and resourcefulness though I maybe should not be given our shared heritage. There are times, however when the difference between us is clearly demonstrated.

Chimpanzee vs. Human child learning (1/2)


Update: Oops, accidentally posted part (2/2) - got it right now. Both are worth seeing though. Grow into these trousers... >>

Not so much a close shave as...

Duncanr at The Mad Hatters asks if we prefer the bikini line waxed or au natural. My own preferences are very clear:
















Now watch Dan Dennett as he begins to explain the roots of attraction.

Cute, sexy, sweet and funny -- an evolutionary riddle
Grow into these trousers... >>

Oh, come on - I'm not that drunk

Pink elephant is caught on camera

...

How do I say this?

...


Er...
Flying pig alert:

Grow into these trousers... >>

Here comes Spring!

Happy vernal equinox. From now till October, the days will be longer than the nights. Phew! We've had a few warm sunny days here in West Yorkshire though early morning mists, or just being in the shade, can still make it feel cold.

Pollen is in the air, so the hay-fever sufferers tell me. I've seen queen bumblebees flying, presumably looking for nest sites, and one of my (two) cats brought in the hind leg of a young rabbit. Left by their food bowls it was clearly a 'share' gesture. That's the first rabbit kill this year, there will be many more.

Anyway, Spring is sprung and a young man's fancy turns to lust (or something like that, I forget), so here's an introductory lecture into the nature of sex. Professor Robert Sapolsky explains the ins and outs of sexual reproduction.

Note: it's a long video [1h 40m] but interesting, funny and very educational. Make time and listen, you will be entertained. Highly recommended.

Prof. Robert Sapolsky on the Neurobiology of Primate Sexuality: Part 1


There's a part 2 but I've still to see it I just saw it and I guess Prof. Sapolsky will does enthuse in the same way.
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Many thanks to Bayblab for the link. Grow into these trousers... >>

A fishy story about sex

Recently there have been news reports of fossil finds which show that, 380 million years ago in the Devonian, fish were reproducing by internal fertilization and giving birth to live offspring. PZ Myers had a good post on this, see 'Exposing the intimate details of the sex lives of placoderms', and Nature have released a video describing the fossils and their interpretation. Watch it on YouTube:



F**king ancient fish! This of course raises questions as to the lineage of land vertebrates such as ourselves. The majority of fish reproduce externally by spawning (the aquarium guppy is another exception though I'm sure there are more). Amphibians can vary. Most spawn, though the females of some frogs and salamanders can take up the male's sperm packet to fertilize their eggs inside. The unusual caecilians all practice insemination, though some species then lay eggs whilst some give birth to live young. Reptiles, birds and mammals all copulate, sometimes with surprising variety.

But there remains one important question I have to ask.

Did Tiktaalik fuck? Inquiring minds would like to know.
(And if so, did the guys dress to the left or to the right?)
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Thanks to Atheist Media Blog for the video link. Grow into these trousers... >>