Minty Mammoths

by ryan

Two amazing scientific advances to report on today. As we all discussed in the Explainer lounge today, the newspaper had an article about possible scientific plans to clone a woolly mammoth.

Regenterating a Mammoth for 10 Million – NY Times

Wooly Mammoth Task Complete – AP

I’m super psyched about this idea. Imagine driving across Kansas and seeing a herd of woolly mammoths. OMG! After a vigorous debate among Explainers about whether or not it would be ethical to bring back mammoths or the next step…Neanderthals, Paul D. walked in the room. We thought he would shed some light on the Woolly Mammoth sitch, but instead he was more interested in talking about another scientific advance.

Apparently some researchers at MIT have figured out how to insert a section of DNA into the genes of a E Coli to make the bacteria smell like spearmint instead of like poop. This is pretty cool for researchers who spend all day in a lab working with the malodorous bacteria.

Minty Ecoli and Other Bioengineering Feats - NPR

But you know who will be most happy about that advance in the field of DNA research and gene therapy? The future zookeeper who will have to clean the woolly mammoth pen. And yes I wish I thought of that joke eight hours earlier.

How Magic Works

by ryan

Today while procrastinating on working on some writing, I found an article about magic and neuroscience that speaks to the reasons that we have the demonstration on the floor. I know that we always feel like we have to justify having magic in a science museum, but this article offers even more evidence in favor of the art of illusion.  In the subtitle, the Scientific American article states that…

Magicians have been testing and exploiting the limits of cognition and attention for hundreds of years. Neuroscientists are just beginning to catch up

It makes sense to me to have both the magic and the sheep brain demo in the back of the museum and this article talks about how they are related. The article reveals that…

the most versatile instrument in their bag of tricks may be the ability to create cognitive illusions. Like visual illusions, cognitive illusions mask the perception of physical reality. Yet unlike visual illusions, cognitive illusions are not sensory in nature. Rather they involve high-level functions such as attention, memory and causal inference. With all those tools at their disposal, well-practiced magicians make it virtually impossible to follow the physics of what is actually happening—leaving the impression that the only explanation for the events is magic.

Neuroscientists are just beginning to catch up with the magician’s facility in manipulating attention and cognition. Of course the aims of neuroscience are different from those of magic; the neuroscientist seeks to understand the brain and neuron underpinnings of cognitive functions, whereas the magician wants mainly to exploit cognitive weaknesses. Yet the techniques developed by magicians over centuries of stage magic could also be subtle and powerful probes in the hands of neuroscientists, supplementing and perhaps expanding the instruments already in experimental use.

The author talks about how scientists are beginning to look at magic scientifically to understand more deeply how the brain functions in day to day life.

There’s all kinds of great info that relates to both demos. You all can read the full article here…

Magic and the Brain

These connections may also reveal why the Exploratorium’s resident neuroscience expert is also our magic aficionado. And while the article does a great job explaining slight of hand, we can also rely on the magicians Penn and Teller to reveal the real secrets behind slight of hand.

Snail Detail

by Anne

On Saturday, we offered our second family investigation workshop for members.  Using what we’ve learned from the Institute for Inquiry, we investigated garden snails. These little critters turn out to be wonderful to watch–they don’t run away (at least not very fast), they have a non-squishy part to hold onto, they don’t bite, they are completely captivating, and I can easily find them in my garden.  Once every few months or so, my housemates find me out in the garden at night with my headlamp and a container, pulling snails off of the garden wall.  I put them into a plastic tub and keep them until it’s time for class.  On Saturday morning, I woke up to one of my housemates noticing that one of them was on the outside of the lid. I’m not sure how it got out, but luckily, they’re not very fast.

My favorite part was the snail climbing wall/obstacle course, in which snails climbed a post in the classroom that was decorated with a variety of textures, pathways, and loop-the-loops. The snails reliably start making their way up the post when you set them on the course.  They don’t, however, reliably crawl through paper tubes- even when there’s a treat at the end.  Once in the tube, they seem very content to stay there.

Here’s my haiku:

Small, curious snail

Sliding with spiraling home

Squish, slop, suction, stuck

Here is a link to a participant’s blog: http://whydwell.blogspot.com/2008/11/we-love-snails.html.

Exploratorium Health Inspectors

by ryan

Thought you all might appreaciate seeing what kind of place the lunch cloffice is to work in. A couple weeks the Bio folks scurried around the museum collecting samples of bacteria from various locations. They put the 20 samples in petri dishes and waited for the good stuff to grow. Here is the picture of the scraping from the bottom of the grossest lunch bin in the cloffice.

That’s not so pretty. But it’s not as bad as the inside of the smoke ring maker, the drink out of a toilet, the railing and the cow eye fridge. I’m suprised we’re all not sick all the time.

Yes We Can!!!

by ryan

Dead Science Graveyard

by ryan

For those of you who didn’t make it out to Phantasmagorium-atorium at the Exploratorium on Friday night, you missed a hell of a party. There was a hilarious puppet show, a chance to lay down in a coffin, a purveyor of decaying animals, and a sugar skull making workshop. One of my favorite parts of the event was the cemetery of dead science ideas. The concept may have caused a bit of controversy as there might be quibbles about the meaning of ‘dead’ and the meaning of ‘science’ but I loved the installation. It was produced by members of the Exploratorium staff (and contributed to by a number of Explainers). I thought that besides being a beautiful organic piece of artwork, it made a great point. We put faith in science as a way to understand the universe, yet it is illuminating to discover the times that science led us astray. It would be extremely arrogant to think that now, finally, we know everything about the universe. And in fact that is the point. We are in the business of constantly experimenting, gathering evidence and testing out ideas to create a evolving understanding of ourselves and or surroundings. In my mind the exploratorium is all about questioning assumptions, which is something that someone had to do to prove the ‘dead science ideas’ wrong. Without further ado, here are some of the notable Explainer contributions to the scene.

Scandinavianarium

by Ann Bartkowski

So as I mentioned during meeting, last week I had a really enjoyable interaction with a friendly group of Danish people at Philosophy Demo.  After we had decided whether or not time was real, when an activity becomes a bad habit, and where our minds go after we die, we still had plenty of time to discuss the science centres in Denmark where two of the women work. 

One woman apparently hailed from the Exploratorium’s Danish doppelganger, the Experimentarium.  According to Paul D., it’s built inside an old brewery and, as the woman said, has a similar feel to the warehouse our beloved Exploratorium is in (for now).  She gave us the museum’s brochure, which had a really nice quote about recognizing intelligence in everyone.  It reminded me of the multiple intelligences theory book that Anne recommended reading over the summer.  Unfortunately, I cannot find the brochure, and I don’t remember what the quote is.  Anyway, they have a pretty sweet website if you want to check it out.

They seem to have info about many of their exhibits online, and a lot of them sound very familiar to ours…stuff about DNA, how we hear, perception, light, water, bubbles, etc. …but with different variations.  One of their current exhibitions is about driving.  It reminds me of the discussion we had about attention and multi-tasking during the study group that Jennie and I led.  The Experimentarium has apparently built a virtual reality car that you can “drive”:

“Get comfortable behind the wheel of the Little Crashbang family car. The mobile phone rings. Camilla has dropped her soother and you just want to change the radio station. Do you manage to successfully brake before your neighbour’s daughter hits the front of the car?

Put on the impairment goggles. Just a beer or two – how much can you drink before you begin to feel the effects of alcohol?”  

 Yikes!

So in addition to the Experimentarium, there is also another science place in Denmark called Danfoss Universe.  According to the woman we met who worked there, it is a combination science museum and theme park; Kind of like an Experimentarium/Exploratorium but with giant exhibits that you can immerse your whole body in.  They include, but are not limited to: a 5 °C room with an ice slide, a 40°C room that simulates a desert, a waterworks section about water and engineering, mechanical stuff like swings and giant hamster wheels you can run in, and virtual reality exhibits. 

Now that I know about these museums, I want to go to Denmark even more than I did before.  Does anyone else want to come? Maybe the Explainers and their Danish counterparts can have an exchange program!