Chap Hop

There is currently a beef between two hip-hop stars. A beef which centers around handlebar mustaches and quality tea. The two heavyweights involved, Mr. B and Prof Elemental, are the leading lights in the sub-genre of "Chap Hop".

Recently getting coverage from Wired Magazine and The Wall Street Journal the two artists have been making waves in their native England, and on the internet. (I can't believe the Wall Street Journal found out about these guys before I did! I can't even tell you how old that makes me feel.)  

Nothing original from me on this stuff, just wanted to share a couple interesting points, such as the following wonderful quote:

As scantily clad cabaret dancers apply false eyelashes, Mr. Burke sums up the influences behind his brand of Chap-Hop: Public Enemy's Chuck D, Noel Coward and British music-hall star George Formby.

(Seriously, the WSJ article is really well done and fun.)

And how hard does this sound:

Onstage, resident DJ Earl of Ealing (Ian Crouch to his friends) is mixing tracks using two 1930s picnic gramophones playing 78-rpm swing records. The process is laborious, requiring the phonographs to be wound and the needle to be changed for each record: no easy task, especially while holding a martini.

Both Professor Elemental and Mr. B are getting a fair amount of views on youtube, and they each have some pretty well done videos up.

Comedy in Remodeling

My day job isn't usually a source of huge chuckles, but when we were asked to install concrete contertops in a kitchen remodel, I did come across something pretty amusing: Vibrator Town!

A "concrete vibrator" is used to shake out any excess air or particles out of wet concrete. We hopped online to price one out, fully expecting what we'd get when we searched "concrete vibrators" through Google. But I wasn't expecting to see a store where you could find both industrial and, um, more personal selections on the same page. A little tip: make sure you double check your cart before checking out. 

Weird Wednesday: Parasites and Mind Control

It's a given: parasites are creepy. The idea of something invading our bodies and feeding off of us is disturbing in any number of ways. Apart from the general sense of violation, they are known to cause disease and dysfunction. Whether they're causing diarrhea in humans or gid in sheep, parasites make us sick. But could a parasite ever directly control the behavior of its host? 

In fact, documented cases of parasites directing their victim's actions date back to the 1930s, and there is some fossil evidence that indicates that this behavior has been going on for eons. In the modern age, as observation techniques and technology have improved, an ever more bizarre list of example behaviors have been uncovered.

(Illustration: Patrick Kastner / The Columbus Dispatch)

Parasites that show evidence of being able to exert such influence have a multi-step life cycle. They often are only able to breed inside one kind of host, and must travel through one or more secondary hosts in order to reach their destination. If they develop into a new stage while in their host, it is called a “intermediate” host, but if they just hitch a ride with transforming they are said to be in “transport” host. The final host is called “definitive”.

Most evidence of parasitical control is found in transport or intermediate hosts whose behavior is modified to make it more likely that they will be consumed by the definitive host. For example, the “gid” disease in sheep mentioned earlier is caused by a tapeworm which infects the sheep and causes them to stumble around. This makes them prime targets forwolves, which are the definitive host for the tapeworm.

There's a slide show at ScientificAmerican.com with a few excellent photos of some of this parasitic behavior, including a wasp that stings cockroaches then rides them around like motorbikes before laying eggs inside them Alien style, and this great photo of some enflamed ant butt:

 (photo credit: Steve Yanoviak)

The parasite Myrmeconema neotropicum turns its ant victim's endparts bright red, then forces it to march away from the colony, and position itself in leafy vantage points where, mistaken for a berry, it will make a nice snack for the definitive host: a bird. 

Here's a great excerpt from Parasites: Latching on to a Free Lunch by Paul Fleisher:

This worm's definitive host is a sheep, cow, or other grazing animal. A snail picks up the fluke's eggs from the animal's manure. The eggs hatch inside the snail. The worm larvae make their way to the snail's digestive system. The snail soon sheds the larvae inside little balls of slime. Each slime ball contains as many as five hundred larvae. An ant finds the slime and eats it. The ant in now infected.

Here's where the story becomes astounding. Fluke larvae make their way to the ant's tiny brain and take control. Somhow the larvae force the ant to act in a way it never would otherwise. In the evening, instead of returning to its nest, the ant climbs a blade of grass. It grabs the grass with its jaws and holds on. Why?

The flukes need to get into a sheep's stomach to complete their life cycle. When a sheep or some other grazing animal eats the ant along with a mouthful of grass, it gets a bellyful of worms. What if the ant isn't eaten? The next morning it crawls back down and goes about its business. But that evening, the worms take over and it climbs up another blade of grass to try again.

These last two examples are especially interesting because they involve a change in the appearance of the host, as well as behavior changes that only take place at night. For the sci-fi or folklore buff, this provides an explanation for countless stories about everything from zombies to werewolves. Is it possible that a parasite-infected human could have such strange behavior and physical changes to eventually inspire myths and legends that we still tell today? Of course, in order to believe that we would need evidence showing that human behavior can be affected by parasites. (You can probably see where I'm going with this one...)

Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite which affects warm-blooded mammals, including humans. Its definitive hosts are cats, with the intermediate host of mice and rats. The smaller animals pick up the parasite through cat feces, and then begin to be bolder and less likely to run away from cats. This unnatural behavior makes them more likely to be eaten by felines, and keeps the cycle going. The problem for humans is that we are also susceptible, and in fact Toxoplasma gondii is estimated to infect up to a third of the world's human population . Although the infection usually results in mild flu-like symptoms psychiatrists like Robert Yolken and E. Fuller Torrey have tied T. gondii to schizophrenia, and separate research from Kevin Lafferty has looked at broader personality changes among the infected. Interestingly, Lafferty has found that while both infected men and women were more likely to be guilt-prone and self-doubting, other symptoms such as changes in aggressiveness seemed to have a strong split between the sexes. And for the record, women show increased intelligence, while the men's IQ dropped. Lafferty's initial article is here, and is good reading.

So if we know that some parasites are capable of altering the mental processes of their victims, and we have clear record that such parasites can infect humans, how much of a stretch is it to imagine some new parasite that could reshape human behavior?

Pleasant dreams, kids.

From Beyond: new review at Ninja Camp

Just put up a quickie review of The Super Flash Bros' "From Beyond". Check it out the review at Ninja Camp or go play the game at the developers' site.

Priorities, and missing those who are gone.

Merlin Mann has an eloquent new post on 43folders.com. You can find it here.

There's two reasons I wanted to point to his article.

1) He talks about what it felt like when they took his dad's rental hospital bed out of the family home.  A couple of weeks ago when they took my dad away, and the next day when they took the bed, I was struck by how much of a void was left behind. The empty bed looked almost obscene sitting there by itself with the constant whir of its pressure adjustments silenced. I actually had to go find a blanket to cover the thing up, as though it were a corpse. And the following day, when the hospice people took the bed, I couldn't believe how BIG that room was.

I know that's a normal reaction, but it still felt good to hear someone else say it. And to hear them still say it 40 years on means that it stays with you. Good. 

I never want to forget the fact that 10 years after his stroke, after 9 months in a bed, and after almost 19 days without food or water, my dad still had a presence that could fill up a room and leave a near vaccuum when he was suddenly gone.

2) Mann's piece is really about priorities, and making sure that whatever your top priority is, it's at the top because you put it there. By definition your top priority trumps the stuff underneath it, and we all need to make damn sure that what we really care about isn't being choked out by something we feel we “need” to do. None of us can avoid making occasional concessions to reality, but if we don't fight that slow creep, it's so easy to let our souls get gradually pushed down the pecking order. And then instead of living, we're just going through the motions.

All of which seems a bit heavy. I'll try and get more giant spider factoids to balance it out.

Giant Spiders (the Spider Goat is real)

The other day I came across mention of Congolese stories of the J'ba Fofi. These creatures are supposedly giant spiders (about 5 feet across) that live in the jungles of the Congo, preying on animals and the occasional unwary human. I've always been told that such a large arachnid would be impossible, and out of curiosity I thought I'd try to understand the reasons why. In the process I came across something every bit as amazing as the J'ba Fofi: spider/goat hybrids which are living on a ranch in Wyoming.

As a fan of weird tales and unknown animals, I've seen the concept of giant spiders surface in popular culture countless times. Some of the more memorable include almost all of Tolkein's works, and of course all of the oversized 1950's sci-fi creatures. Ray Bradbury's short story “The Finnegan” is a personal favorite, as is “The Spider”, a radio drama which appeared on the show Lights Out in 1943. And last but not least there is an episode of The Twilight Zone that I personally credit for my fear of spiders to this day, an episode which was also written by Ray Bradbury (damn you, Ray!).

Reports of spiders the size of J'ba Fofi also can be found outside of Africa, from the Urban Legends of the American Bayou, and the stories that have filtered through the armed forces since the first Gulf War about Camel Spiders, with occasional emails getting passed along featuring photos of monstrous looking critters. In addition, tales of the Chupacabra, while not being described as a giant spider, often behaves as such, leaving its livestock victims drained of fluid, with two puncture wounds in their sides.

Giant Spider Reality Check: They don't get that big.

The Camel Spider photos are well-known exaggerations. In reality they top out a little over 6 inches in size, which admittedly is bigger than anything you want hiding in your boots. Their bite is extremely painful, but they don't attack humans or livestock, and thy don't jump onto your face. They're also technically not spiders, but I'm not pedantic enough to argue that point. See this article on Snopes.com for more info. 

There's a few reasons to doubt that spiders could grow to giant size in today's environment. Primarily because spiders do not have lungs in the sense that you or I do. Instead, they have either “Book Lungs” which are a series of flat sheets which collect oxygen, or tracheae which are essentially tubes that run into its body, or a combination of both. Generally speaking, the faster and more nimble a spider is, the more likely it is to have tracheae-dominant oxygen supply. The key point is that spiders, just like insects, don't have lungs to act as bellows pumping oxygen through their systems. Around 350 million years ago the Earth seems to have had a denser, more oxygen-rich atmosphere, which allowed insects' tracheal tubes to carry more O2 through their bodies without having to increase the volume of air processed. This allowed insects to grow to larger sizes and achieve flight easier, and there is evidence of insects which fall within the size range attributed to creatures like J'ba Fofi. While there is no fossil record of large spiders from that time (the one which was a possibility was later shown to be a sort of early crab), the difficulty of finding an exoskeleton fossil doesn't rule out the possibility that they existed. (And with some of the incredible fossil insects found so far, you never know what will turn up.)

An illustration from Britannica.com showing "Book Lungs"

What this means is that if a spider were of enormous size, then its physiology would have to be considerably different than spiders as we know them now. Their breathing system would have to function differently, and there may well need to be some element of skeletal support to replace/supplement their exoskelton. In order to see such changes there would have to be some major changes in the spider's DNA. But what are the chances that someone would go messing around with the spider gene pool? Well.....

Spider Goat Reality Check: Truth is stranger than fiction

In 2000, a Canadian company began breeding goats that had been modified with orb weaver spider DNA. If you're like me, this sounds unbelievable. Here's some coverage from the BBC, The New York Times,  and an informative video produced by VCU.

The rationale behind the project was based around the incredible range of potential uses for spider silk . From Lawrence Osbourne's NY Times piece:

Nexia foresees tapping into the $500 million market for fishing materials as well as the $1.6 billion market for industrial fibers in the near future. And the haute-couture world is already intrigued by a nearly weightless gossamer-like fabric. But the real gold mine might be body armor: the Pentagon is working with Nexia to develop a prototype of a new kind of vest that might be made entirely out of goat silk. The vest would be only a little thicker than nylon, but it could stop a bullet dead.

[...]

In any case, the properties of spider silk have long been recognized. Fishermen in India have always prized it for the making of their nets; American Civil War soldiers frequently used it as a surgical dressing. The problem lay always in getting sufficient quantities of it. Whereas silkworms are peaceful herbivores and can easily be farmed, spiders are aggressive territorial carnivores that need plenty of space and solitude. In farm conditions, they moodily attack and eat each other.

The solution to this problem was to find a way to create an animal that had the ease of husbandry and the silk production of spiders. Enter Prof. Randy Lewis of the University of Wyoming. He lead the team that spliced spider genes into goat embryos that were then cloned to make two kids. These goats were then bred, passing the added spider genetics down their bloodline. Nexia worked with a number of breeds, with the total number topping out around 500. There is a good summary interview with Randy Lewis here .

However, Nexia ran out of cash, and by 2005 hundreds of spider goats had been euthanized. The few dozen that remained were transported to another Canadian farm, where they were eventually picked up by Lewis, and brought back to Wyoming. They are there still, and the research continues. In January of 2011, David Pogue's “Making Stuff Stronger” program for the PBS series Nova spent some time at the facility and gives a very good explanation of the process (at the end of this episode, if you're curious).

Prof. Lewis and his team are doing good science and have really intriguing ideas. Although it's certainly startling to hear about a spider goat, it's important to keep in mind that it's only 1/70,000th spider. If you want to describe the process in a more palatable way, consider that spider silk is 100% protein, and goats' milk is filled with different proteins. These goats have just been tweaked to allow this one additional protein into their milk.

So if you've read this little article and if you still find the J'ba Fofi ridiculous, if you laugh at the unbelievable things that some people claim to have seen, then imagine siting down with a member of the Baka tribe, and explaining that in the middle of the United States, there are goats which are part spider casually living out their lives, running around on a farm munching on plants. And maybe, just maybe, those plants might also be part spider. Don't believe me on that one? Check out the University of Wyoming's patent application.

Pleasant dreams, kids.

spider goat photo from: https://sites.google.com/site/noespidergoat/3/3a

New label maker

New NinjaCamp Review

I just put up a review of Ted Lauterbach's suteF over on NinjaCamp.com. It's a short review, but I'll try to condense it as follows:

"This game is creepy. You should play it."

To read the full review, check it out here.

Early iPad and iPod nano (3rd gen) in Dune

Look, I'm just sayin'.... 

Eulogy for Jim Stout

A number of people have asked for copies of the eulogy I delivered at my Dad's funeral. I thought it would be easier to just put it up in one spot, so here it is:

My name is Dan, and I'm the youngest of Jim and Maryann's children. When my Mom asked me to speak today, I had no idea what I was going to talk about. I knew that it would be impossible to list all of the ways that Jim Stout touched the lives of those around him, and I didn't want to come up here and give some variation of “He's not gone, you just can't see him”. So I thought I'd talk about the stars, and how on summer vacations my Dad taught me to look up in dark Canadian nights, so far away from civilization that the Milky Way is lit up like million neon signs, and how you could feel the awe and respect it inspired in our ancestors. 

My Dad bought me my first telescope, and taught me how to find the constellations. He started with the easy ones first, the Dippers and Cepheus, the one that looks like a triangle sitting on top of a square. He taught me to be thorough and careful and precise. And he showed me how to navigate a row boat into the middle of a lake, and then just lay back and let it drift, so that the sky forms a bowl over your head, and the only thing you hear is the lapping of waves and loons in the distance.

So this is what I wanted to talk about, and because I'm a nerd I got on the internet. I read about stars, and I read about planets, and I read that for years there was an argument over how we could find planets that circled other stars, planets far too distant to be seen with telescopes. Some questioned if it would ever be possible. But in 1988 while a little boy and his dad slipped out onto a lake to stargaze, three astronomers on the other side of Canada looked into that same dark sky and realized that they'd done it.

Think of a planet like a rock at the end of a rope. If you spin that rope around, you'll see that your hand is also moving, pulled back and forth by the motion of the rock. In the same way a star gets tugged back and forth as its planets circle round. Just a little bit - it's just barely perceptible - but it's enough.

This trio of astronomers had collected data over decades, patiently accumulating evidence. As Jim Stout worked at the Blade, raised a family, volunteered at church, loved his wife, they looked at the stars. Jim's children grew up and had families of their own, and he watched his grandchildren grow up, and all the while these astronomers searched for subtle tugs of influence, those gentle nudges, until at last they did it. On the crown of Cepheus, that triangle sitting on a square, they found the first planet outside of our solar system even though no one could see it with their eyes.

And I thought about my family, and about how sometimes my mom smiles to herself remembering one of my dad's jokes, and how that lifts her heart for the rest of the day. I thought about all the times one of his kids or grand-kids or great-grand-kids does something right the first time, without being asked. Or when we make the right choice, even though it's more difficult, or when we treat a stranger with respect. Or when any of us whose lives have been touched by Jim just does something to be a better person, friend, parent, or spouse. That's my Dad's influence, tugging on us like a hidden planet.

I thought of all that. And I am proud to stand here and say: My Dad isn't gone, you just can't see him.