Today I learned...

The rabbit on the moon

missconstrue — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:16:47 +0000

The skies have been awfully clear lately, and the full moon particularly refulgent (ha!). I can spend hours just staring at nightscapes, even if the stars are hidden on full moon nights.

Anyway, I can’t believe how few people know about the moon rabbit so I’ve decided to blog about it here.

According to the Asian version, the Jade Rabbit is an accompanient to Chang-e and is portrayed as pounding herbs in the Chinese verision, or mochi in the Jap/Korean version (Mochi! How much cuter can that get!). This version of the rabbit actually looks different from how I see it. A picture of it can be found here but I didn’t bother posting it directly because it doesn’t even look like a rabbit to me.

This is how I see the rabbit (it’s much cuter and fluffier). It comes from a children’s book called the Bunny Rabbit on the Moon. :

There are also plenty of other objects and animals that have been conjured up, each with their respective stories:

Look up next time and tell me what you see!

Wednesday is the deadliest day for suicide

missconstrue — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:05:51 +0000

From a 5-year study on suicides in the US, these are the suicide rates for each day:

Monday – 14.3%

Tuesday – 12.7%

Wednesday – 24.6%

Thursday – 11.1%

Saturday – 14.4%

Sunday – 11.8%

So much for Monday Blues, seems like Wednesday is when we should really be worrying about.

Read the full article here.

Living abroad linked to creativity

missconstrue — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:45:37 +0000

It may seem intuitive to expect that living abroad enhances creativity, but social scientists need empirical evidence for their claims, which is why even the most intuitive or commonsense axioms are put to the test.

In an article that appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers examine the link between overseas experience and creative problem solving, and found that the amount of time spent living overseas (but not travelling overseas) had a relationship with creativity. In the experiment, participants were asked to design a solution for fastening a candle to a wall with a box of tacks such that no wax would spill. People who spent more time living abroad were more likely to come to a creative solution in the experimental task – that is, to use to cardboard box as a base for the candle, rather than affixing the candle directly to the wall.

Such studies cannot provide a direct causal link as living abroad was not directly manipulated nor randomized. However, further studies provide a stronger link between the two variables. Using a priming technique, researcher found that asking participants to recall experiences living abroad or adapting to new cultures temporarily enhanced their creativity tendencies. Also, the degree to which participants adapted and assimilated to new cultures mediated the relationship between foreign experience and creativity, suggesting that it was the need for cultural manoeuvring and adaptation which was related to enhanced creativity.

Read the full article here.

Tongue Joysticks?

missconstrue — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:57:53 +0000

Avid gamers who fancy more buttons and controls than their ten fingers can manage, might take an interest in tongue joysticks:

Okay, so the original purpose of this new technology isn’t to soup up computer geeks’ game performances, but rather to provide disabled people a more precise method of controlling a computer or a wheelchair. Still, tongue joysticks essentially give users a third hand, and the possibilites of that enriching our lives are endless!

Read the full article here.

Resistance to Tamiflu reported in H1N1 pandemic

missconstrue — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:41:38 +0000

The first case of the H1N1 strain being resistant to Tamiflu has now been reported in Denmark, but it’s not time to panic yet as the patient responded well to Relanza, another antiviral drug. Still, Tamiflu, the antiviral drug, is the first line of defense against flus and the H1N1s resistance to it is of concern. Normal seasonal strains of H1N1 have been resistant to Tamiflu for the last two years, and researchers have been afraid that the pandemic strain might interbreed with seasonal ones to become more deadly.

Read the full article here.

Flats that fit right into your purse

missconstrue — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:36:33 +0000

Too many nights I have tottered on high heels with no reprieve – I want one of these! Rollable flats which fit right into your purse are being sold out of vending machine located outside clubs and cost only $5 a pop. The most amazing thing is that they are small enough to tuck into an evening clutch.

The flats are marketed and sold in the UK by Afterheels and Rollasole. l

Discovery of the largest stellar nursery

missconstrue — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:55:49 +0000

CTB102 (they really should have more interesting names) is one of the largest stellar nursery in our galaxy and had been eluding discovery because dust had been blocking the emission of light due to its location in the Perseus arm (the arm directly next to us). It is up to 380 light years in diameter and scientists believe it may be incubating thousands of stars, including the famous Orion Nebula.

Space science is one of my bigger interests but I don’t blog more about it because it is terribly complex and the process of writing requires a deeper level of understanding than mere browsing. Still, throughout my foray these couple of months, I have learnt these nifty facts:

1) Our galaxy, the milky way is an iconic spiral-armed galaxy. Pretty, isn’t it?:

2) All the stars we see in the sky belong to our galaxy. Stars out of our galaxy cannot be seen, and even the nearest galaxy (in the direction of the Andromedra constellation) can hardly be seen with the naked eye, let alone a single star. (Reference here)

3) Our solar system belongs in the Orion Arm (the orange line). The cyan line is the Perseus arm, purple is Norma and Cygnus, green is Scutum-Crux, and pink is denoted as the Carina and Sagittarius arm.

4) The names of space objects out of our galaxy use the constellations within our galaxy as markers to their locations. For example, the Orion nebula can be seen in the direction of the Orion constellation. Ditto for the Andromedra galaxy. This convention confused me for a long while.

5) The hubble telescope is only a few kilometres out of our atmosphere, and already it takes such brilliant photos. It recently had to be serviced and there are plans for a bigger, better successor. The Webb telescope will be deployed in 2013, and is set to orbit nearly a million miles away from Earth. It is expected to be able to capture more distant stars, and perhaps even witness the birth of the universe.

6) Red dwarf stars hold the best hope for life but are more difficult to discover as they emit lower light and heat than their blue or orange cousins. The red dwarf star, Gilese 581, is of great interest to Astroscientists because of its unique conditions which seem to suggest habitability for life. It is located 20.5 light years away, in the Libra constellation. The fifth planet in the system (Gilese 581e) was only recently detected and is the lightest extrasolar planet found to date. It is only 1.2 times the mass of Earth, although its close proximity to the star suggests that it is not conducive for life. However, scientists manage to refine the orbit of Gilese 581d, which was detected in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone where liquid oceans may exist.

7) The galactic habitable zone (HZ) is a narrow strip on a theoretical graph plot which demarcates the conditions necessary for life, base on the size of the star and the distance of the orbiting planet. Larger stars are hotter, and thus planets need to be further away from it for optimal light and heat condtions.
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Gambling rats

missconstrue — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:09:06 +0000

Researchers from the University of British Columbia have created an animal laboratory to study gambling addiction. Rats are given several gambling options with differing payouts of food pellets with accompanied risks of a timeout and no-food period. If they picked and won a high risk option, they would receive more food pellets, but if they failed, they would go hungry for longer. The study found that the drug-induced suppression of serotonin levels impaired impulse control and resulted in more risky gambling behavior while the suppression of dopamine levels had an opposite effect.

The next task is to replicate more complex gambling behavior in our furry friends like loss-chasing (where gamblers follow a loss with with a higher risk gamble) and the near-miss effect (where individuals nearly win a gamble, which may increase subsequent risk appetites) in the animal lab.

I’m a little skeptical about the validity of replicating human, complex behavior in animals, but hey, this article is being published in the prestigious journal, Science. Any thoughts?

Read the full article here.

Verner Panton

missconstrue — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:55:15 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve been at the museum so I’m glad I managed to catch the Verner Panton exhibition at the National Museum today. Verner Panton (1926 – 1998) is considered one of the most influential Danish contemporary designers and his works are so unknowingly ubiquitous. This, for example, is one of his most famously replicated designs, the iconic Panton Chair:

I think a similar design probably even sells at Ikea.

Verner Panton also had a big thing for colours, remarking that people were happier if they sat on chairs in their favorite color. He also worked with lights, mirrors and fabric designs, creating psychedelic, sometimes confusing and disorienting rooms:

The highlight of the exhibition must have been to step into his “Phantasy Landscape”. I love interactive art in general so stepping into the warm cocoon of colors and swirls was a particularly pleasing experience. It felt so much like stumbling onto an alternate reality in which time was non-existent and colors had the power to envelop you like a baby:

View his online musuem here.

The sun is the coldest it has been in a century

missconstrue — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:47:22 +0000

It may be scorching hot outside, but the fact is that the sun has been really quiet of late – no sunspots, very few solar flares. Solar activity usually waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles, but instead of heating up as it should have after a calmer period, the sun mysteriously went cooler instead.

Sunspots (marked by red dots) could be seen in the 2001 picture of the sun, but not in recent pictures

Scientists are now scrambling to figure out why exactly this is occuring. What we do know already though, is that unfortunately, a colder sun isn’t going to help us with the problem of global warming or climate change.

Read more about the cold sun here, here and here.