Now that spring is starting to appear, our neighborhood is awash with the song of birds singing in the trees. Every day while waiting for the bus, I see at least a few geese flying overhead on their way south. And the number of robins digging worms in our yard is actually kind of comical. As I watch all of these birds, I am frequently struck by the fact that birds are remarkable fliers. The ease with which they take off, maneuver in the wind, swoop and swoon like acrobats, somehow manage to avoid running into each other, and then land safely on any number of surfaces (trees, roofs, the ground, cars, electrical wires, or the surface of Lake Washington) is remarkable. How do they do it?
Flying is all about having enough upward thrust to overcome to force of gravity pulling an object to the ground. Birds achieve this thrust using their wings in 2 ways – by manipulating air that is already moving (as in gliding) or by moving air themselves (as in flapping).
Gliding is actually relatively simple. When a bird is already airborne, it can glide in much the same way that a hang glider does. For one, they use thermals, trade winds or updrafts. These are piles of air that are rising upwards. The air moving upwards creates a force on the underside of their wings, pushing them up. For another, the shape of the wings gives them upward thrust. As their wings move against the air, they push the air underneath the wings down. This is a force that must be counteracted (according the Newton’s law of every action having an equal and opposite reaction) by an equal and opposite force up. A force pushing up – and voila! Flight.
Okay, so that’s the easy case. What about flapping? How does that work? Well, when a wing flaps, it pushes air in a strong force downwards. This moves the bird up in the air. A curious question, therefore, is why doesn’t the upward stroke of a wing flapping create a force that pushes the bird down? Actually, bird wings are hinged – when the flap down, they are fully extended. But when they move back up, they are folded up, presenting less surface area to push against the wind. You can think about this like the oar on a canoe. If you paddle with the full surface area of the blade pushing against the water, you get a big push. But if you paddle with the blade parallel to the direction of motion, you don’t get much thrust at all. So just imagine a bird wing being like a canoe paddle that pushes air around, instead of water.
Well, it doesn’t sound too complicated, right? If that’s all it takes for flight, why haven’t humans invented self-flying units with retractable wings that we can use to take off, and why don’t we glide into work every day in our personal hang gliders? Well, a bird can fly not only because of the forces its wings can exert on the air, but because its body is uniquely adapted for flight in ways that a human body is not. For example, birds are extremely light. They have extremely strong, hollow bones – strong enough to get the job done, but light enough not to create too much weight to overcome. Birds have feathers, which are capable of trapping and dispersing more air than hair or skin. Birds have highly efficient respiratory systems, which are extremely good at extracting oxygen from the air. In addition, they have extra air sacs next to the lungs, so the animals never run out of breath. This is really important, as it takes a lot of energy (and thus a lot of oxygen) to maintain flight. And birds eat food that is highly energy dense for their body size, which (again) gives them the extra energy they need to carry out this tremendously difficult task.
The human body is all wrong for us to be able to fly on our own. We’re much too heavy, largely because we’re so dense. We don’t have any sort of extra light, fluffy, airy material like feathers to help us move air the way we want to; our arms and hands are neither strong nor big enough to create enough of a downward thrust to move us skyward. Our lungs are perfectly fine for our usual activity on land, but are nowhere near efficient enough for such an aerobically intensive feat as flying. In fact, we just don’t have enough energy, period.
Of course, we have found ways around our limitations as far as flying goes. We’ve built jumbo jets, ultralights, hang gliders, and powered parachutes. So it is possible to get us off of the ground. But if you were to compare the simplicity of a bird flying with all of the ways that we as humans do it?
Frankly, I don’t think it’s much of a contest which one is more elegant. So you can consider this another entry in my list of “ways in which nature is a much better engineer than man.”
(With apologies to all of the engineers I know out there.)
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
It’s a bird… it’s a plane… it's a squirrel?
Today’s topic is one of those that makes me smile. Say these two little words to me, and I guarantee you that a silly grin will pop to my face. I don’t know why, exactly – it’s just irresistible to me. Want to know what the 2 words are?
Flying squirrels.
I find something irresistibly funny about the idea of squirrels flying loftily through the air. Squirrels! Those little, bushy-tailed sneaks who will do just about anything to get into a bird feeder, who sit and chirp just outside the patio door (tantalizingly out of reach of our cats), who like to play chicken and run across the road right in front of my car, and who have been brazen enough to steal entire grilled cheese sandwiches from picnic tables when my attention has turned. (That’s a true story, by the way.) I guess I find it funny that an animal like that can fly gracefully and elegantly through the sky.
Actually, we must get something straight. Flying squirrels can’t actually fly – they glide. They have a large, loose flap of skin that stretches between their front and back legs. When they jump from a tall tree, this skin stretches out, forming a shape much like a kite. Using the lift provided from these “wings” and their tails as rudders, the squirrels can glide up to 150 feet through the air to land on another tree trunk. The only true flying mammals in the world belong to the order Chiroptera, to which bats belong. Flying squirrels belong to the order Rodentia (yes, they are rodents), the family Sciuridae (meaning squirrel), and the subfamily Pteromyinae (meaning flying squirrels). There are two major subfamilies of flying squirrels – Northern and Southern. These differ in their geographic distribution, forest preference, and subtly in their appearance – for example, Northern flying squirrels tend to be larger than Southern ones.
While the flying squirrel is possibly the most well known mammalian glider, there are other ones, as well. There are several species of gliding possums, including 11 belonging to the family Petauridae. These guys have great names, including the Great-Tailed Triok, Tate’s Triok, Leadbeater’s Possum, the Biak Glider, and the Sugar Glider. There is another species of flying squirrel called the scaly-tailed flying squirrel (an African rodent that’s not actually related to squirrels at all, it just looks like them). There are also 2 species of flying colugos, or lemurs. It’s not a bad list, considering that mammals really do not have the right body shape or structure for flight at all!
What prompted my decision to write about flying squirrels? I came across an article recently in National Geographic about efforts to design a jumpsuit that will allow humans to skydive without a parachute – instead, they’ll glide to safety in the same way a flying squirrel does. It’s called a wingsuit. Actually, wingsuits do currently exist; they have large fabric panels between the arms and legs of the suit that allow the skydiver to maneuver in freefall. However, the current generation of wingsuits are not advanced enough to allow the entire flight to be parachute-free – you still need that for the actual landing. That’s because while the gliding action of the wingsuit slows your vertical speed down dramatically, it translates it into horizontal speed – upwards of 90 miles an hour. That’s plenty of speed to do some damage to your body! Designers are trying to create a wingsuit that will allow the skydiver to manipulate their “wings” at the last minute before landing, slowing their horizontal speed.
Now, the jury’s still out as to whether or not this will actually work. I think we can be certain of one thing, though. Nature still has mankind beat when it comes to creative ways to handle complex problems. What we will only be able to do with extreme effort, these squirrelly little rodents have been doing effortlessly for years. Kind of humbling, don’t you think?
Flying squirrels.
I find something irresistibly funny about the idea of squirrels flying loftily through the air. Squirrels! Those little, bushy-tailed sneaks who will do just about anything to get into a bird feeder, who sit and chirp just outside the patio door (tantalizingly out of reach of our cats), who like to play chicken and run across the road right in front of my car, and who have been brazen enough to steal entire grilled cheese sandwiches from picnic tables when my attention has turned. (That’s a true story, by the way.) I guess I find it funny that an animal like that can fly gracefully and elegantly through the sky.
Actually, we must get something straight. Flying squirrels can’t actually fly – they glide. They have a large, loose flap of skin that stretches between their front and back legs. When they jump from a tall tree, this skin stretches out, forming a shape much like a kite. Using the lift provided from these “wings” and their tails as rudders, the squirrels can glide up to 150 feet through the air to land on another tree trunk. The only true flying mammals in the world belong to the order Chiroptera, to which bats belong. Flying squirrels belong to the order Rodentia (yes, they are rodents), the family Sciuridae (meaning squirrel), and the subfamily Pteromyinae (meaning flying squirrels). There are two major subfamilies of flying squirrels – Northern and Southern. These differ in their geographic distribution, forest preference, and subtly in their appearance – for example, Northern flying squirrels tend to be larger than Southern ones.
While the flying squirrel is possibly the most well known mammalian glider, there are other ones, as well. There are several species of gliding possums, including 11 belonging to the family Petauridae. These guys have great names, including the Great-Tailed Triok, Tate’s Triok, Leadbeater’s Possum, the Biak Glider, and the Sugar Glider. There is another species of flying squirrel called the scaly-tailed flying squirrel (an African rodent that’s not actually related to squirrels at all, it just looks like them). There are also 2 species of flying colugos, or lemurs. It’s not a bad list, considering that mammals really do not have the right body shape or structure for flight at all!
What prompted my decision to write about flying squirrels? I came across an article recently in National Geographic about efforts to design a jumpsuit that will allow humans to skydive without a parachute – instead, they’ll glide to safety in the same way a flying squirrel does. It’s called a wingsuit. Actually, wingsuits do currently exist; they have large fabric panels between the arms and legs of the suit that allow the skydiver to maneuver in freefall. However, the current generation of wingsuits are not advanced enough to allow the entire flight to be parachute-free – you still need that for the actual landing. That’s because while the gliding action of the wingsuit slows your vertical speed down dramatically, it translates it into horizontal speed – upwards of 90 miles an hour. That’s plenty of speed to do some damage to your body! Designers are trying to create a wingsuit that will allow the skydiver to manipulate their “wings” at the last minute before landing, slowing their horizontal speed.
Now, the jury’s still out as to whether or not this will actually work. I think we can be certain of one thing, though. Nature still has mankind beat when it comes to creative ways to handle complex problems. What we will only be able to do with extreme effort, these squirrelly little rodents have been doing effortlessly for years. Kind of humbling, don’t you think?
Friday, March 14, 2008
Happy Pi day!
This is more about math than science, but I thought I’d write a brief note about it anyways. Today is March 14th, which translates to 3/14. For those of you who remember your geometry, that sounds an awful lot like the beginning of that most mysterious of all numbers – Pi.
Pi is a mathematical constant, which can be calculated by taking the ratio of a circle’s circumference (the distance around its edge) to its diameter (its width at the widest point). No matter what size circle you use, the calculation comes out to be the same. Pi is an irrational number, which means it has an infinite, non-repeating decimal. The numbers to the right of the decimal point never repeat, and thus pi can never be written as a fraction (not accurately, anyways). Modern computers have calculated pi out to more than a trillion digits – and there is still no end to the number in sight.
To celebrate Pi day, at 1:59 pm at the San Francisco Exploratorium, a group of Pi enthusiasts will gather to really celebrate their favorite number. Why 1:59 pm? Well, 3/14, 1:59… that’s otherwise known as 3.14159.
I don’t think anyone can celebrate more digits of pi with better precision than that.
Pi is a mathematical constant, which can be calculated by taking the ratio of a circle’s circumference (the distance around its edge) to its diameter (its width at the widest point). No matter what size circle you use, the calculation comes out to be the same. Pi is an irrational number, which means it has an infinite, non-repeating decimal. The numbers to the right of the decimal point never repeat, and thus pi can never be written as a fraction (not accurately, anyways). Modern computers have calculated pi out to more than a trillion digits – and there is still no end to the number in sight.
To celebrate Pi day, at 1:59 pm at the San Francisco Exploratorium, a group of Pi enthusiasts will gather to really celebrate their favorite number. Why 1:59 pm? Well, 3/14, 1:59… that’s otherwise known as 3.14159.
I don’t think anyone can celebrate more digits of pi with better precision than that.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
One hardy little worm
As I’ve mentioned before, I am a cellular and molecular biologist. My specific area of research is in the cellular biology of aging – why do cells (and whole organisms) get old and die? To do this research, my colleagues and I use a model organism called Caenorhabditis elegans (or C. elegans, for short). C. elegans is a small roundworm that lives in the soil of temperate environments throughout the world. It was first developed for use in biological research in the 1970s, and has become a premier organism for studying development, neurobiology and aging. C. elegans is a cool animal with lots of really neat features (at least, neat to a biologist), but I’m not going to go into a great amount of detail about the organism itself right now. Instead, I want to write about how amazingly sturdy these worms are.
A group of C. elegans was on board the space shuttle Columbia when it exploded upon re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere on February 1, 2003. A week later, their containers were found amidst the vast amounts of debris left over from the explosion. Three months later, the containers were opened. And to everyone’s amazement, the worms were still alive.
The Columbia performed approximately 60 different experiments while it was in space. Many of those experiments involved various animals – including worms, insects, spiders, fish, bees and silk worms. Worms had been sent into space several times before this, to study the effects of space radiation and microgravity. This time, the experiment was very simple – would the worms survive well in space if fed a synthetic diet instead of its usual bacteria? Had the Columbia survived its re-entry, it’s doubtful whether the results of the experiment would have even made the mainstream media. However, as we know, the Columbia did not survive. And everything of board died – except for the worms.
The worms were growing on Petri dishes, which were enclosed within aluminum containers, which were themselves enclosed in a locker around the mid-deck of the shuttle. The locker itself was discovered, and still contained some moss used in another experiment onboard the space shuttle. (However, the moss had been killed with a preservative before re-entry.) The 5 canisters each contained 6 to 8 petri dishes. Only 1 of the dishes had melted, and those worms died. But the others were still alive. Some of them had gone into a super-stress resistant hibernation mode, which has long been known to allow them to live under conditions of high heat, low food, and extreme stress. But others hadn’t even gone into the hibernation mode – they were still crawling and active.
Even in the midst of the Columbia disaster, many scientists greeted the news of the worm’s survival as groundbreaking. It has been used as an argument for the notion that life on earth may have come here on a meteor from elsewhere in the galaxy. After all, if a worm could survive a gigantic explosion upon coming into the atmosphere, why couldn’t sturdy bacteria do it if it was embedded within a meteor? Now, I don’t want to weigh in on that particular topic. But I do think it incredible that something – anything – could have survived a disastrous re-entry and explosion the way that these worms did.
Of course, it would have been great if we had never had to learn this lesson – because then we wouldn’t have lost the Columbia.
A group of C. elegans was on board the space shuttle Columbia when it exploded upon re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere on February 1, 2003. A week later, their containers were found amidst the vast amounts of debris left over from the explosion. Three months later, the containers were opened. And to everyone’s amazement, the worms were still alive.
The Columbia performed approximately 60 different experiments while it was in space. Many of those experiments involved various animals – including worms, insects, spiders, fish, bees and silk worms. Worms had been sent into space several times before this, to study the effects of space radiation and microgravity. This time, the experiment was very simple – would the worms survive well in space if fed a synthetic diet instead of its usual bacteria? Had the Columbia survived its re-entry, it’s doubtful whether the results of the experiment would have even made the mainstream media. However, as we know, the Columbia did not survive. And everything of board died – except for the worms.
The worms were growing on Petri dishes, which were enclosed within aluminum containers, which were themselves enclosed in a locker around the mid-deck of the shuttle. The locker itself was discovered, and still contained some moss used in another experiment onboard the space shuttle. (However, the moss had been killed with a preservative before re-entry.) The 5 canisters each contained 6 to 8 petri dishes. Only 1 of the dishes had melted, and those worms died. But the others were still alive. Some of them had gone into a super-stress resistant hibernation mode, which has long been known to allow them to live under conditions of high heat, low food, and extreme stress. But others hadn’t even gone into the hibernation mode – they were still crawling and active.
Even in the midst of the Columbia disaster, many scientists greeted the news of the worm’s survival as groundbreaking. It has been used as an argument for the notion that life on earth may have come here on a meteor from elsewhere in the galaxy. After all, if a worm could survive a gigantic explosion upon coming into the atmosphere, why couldn’t sturdy bacteria do it if it was embedded within a meteor? Now, I don’t want to weigh in on that particular topic. But I do think it incredible that something – anything – could have survived a disastrous re-entry and explosion the way that these worms did.
Of course, it would have been great if we had never had to learn this lesson – because then we wouldn’t have lost the Columbia.
Friday, March 7, 2008
That’s some powerful blood!
Today, I’m going to write about something that I’m certain has directly impacted every single person who reads this entry – and yet I’d bet that no one has ever heard about it. This is a story about how a simple, uninspiring-looking animal with prehistoric roots has become essential to the world’s modern medical field. This ungainly creature is directly involved in proving the safety of injectable medicines; in fact, no medicine can be injected into a single patient in the US without first being tested against the blood of this animal. And it might surprise you to learn exactly what animal I’m talking about. It’s not the rabbit. It’s not the rat. It’s not even the mouse.
It’s the North American horseshoe crab.
I’ve never seen a horseshoe crab in person. In fact, I learned about this topic myself recently from a Nova special on PBS, and what first got me watching the show was the sight of these really odd, lumpy-looking critters on a beach on Delaware. My first thought was – “what on earth is that thing on the beach? It looks like an old army helmet.” The show was fascinating, however, and I learned how amazing – and important – these creatures really are.
So what is a horseshoe crab?
Horseshoe crabs are arthropods, more closely related to spiders, ticks and scorpions than to other crabs. They are aquatic, and the North American species is mostly found in the Gulf of Mexico and along
the eastern shore of the North America. (There are other related species off the coasts of Japan and India.) Their bodies are shaped like teardrops, with a long tail coming off the tapered end. They have a large intestinal system, a nervous system with a bulbous brain, and a long heart that extends almost the entire length of its body. They have numerous appendages, including legs for walking, pincers (or chelicerae) for putting food in its mouth, and book gills, which are used both for breathing and for propulsion under water. Their bodies are covered with a hard, curved shell (or carapace). This shell protects the crab from predators, who have a hard time turning them over to get at their soft, edible underbellies. (It’s also this shell that makes them look like army helmets when they’re on the beach.) Their tails serve several purposes, including working as a rudder to help steer the crab when swimming and to help flip the crab over if it gets turned upside-down while out of the water.
Horseshoe crabs have an amazing optical system. They have 2 compound lateral eyes, which are mostly used to find mates. They have 5 additional eyes on the top of their shells, some sensitive to visible light and other sensitive to UV. They have 2 more eyes on their undersides, located near the mouth, which may help keep the animals oriented while swimming. And if that weren’t enough, they also have photoreceptors along their tails to help coordinate their circadian rhythms. Phew! That’s a lot of eyes for one animal.
Where this critter really gets interesting is when you start talking about its blood. Back in the 1960s, Dr. Frederik Bang of Johns Hopkins University was studying horseshoe crabs in Massachusetts. He found that when common marine bacteria were injected into the bloodstream of the horseshoe crab, their blood immediately began to massively clot. While horseshoe crabs lack a sophisticated immune system, they do have a simple way of preventing infections from bacteria, fungus and viruses. Their blood contains numerous compounds that bind to and inactivate the toxic components of such invaders. In the case of bacteria, that toxic component is called endotoxin; the amebocytes bind to any endotoxin and coagulate around it, forming a thick, dense clot. This serves 2 purposes – first, the endotoxin can no longer harm the crab, and second, the entry point by which the bacteria got into the crab is sealed. It’s a simple, but extremely effective, mechanism of preventing bacterial infection.
And this is where the horseshoe crab and modern medicine meet. It turns out that you can purify the compounds in the crab’s blood that cause it to clot in the presence of endotoxin. So let’s say you have an injectable medicine, and you need to test whether or not it is pure – free from bacterial contamination. You mix the medicine with some horseshoe crab blood and watch to see whether a clot forms. If nothing happens, the medicine is clean. However, if a clot does form, that means there is endotoxin – and thus bacteria – in the medicine. And that means it cannot be injected into human patients. All injectable medicines in the US – including vaccines – must be tested against horseshoe crab blood before they are used. This makes horseshoe crab blood extremely valuable. It’s estimated that a quart of the stuff is worth $15,000!
The good news is that we don’t have to kill the crabs to get their blood. They are collected from the water and taken to a designated facility, where some of their blood is removed. In fact, up to 30% of the blood volume from a crab can be removed at any one time without injuring it. Once the collection is done, the crabs are returned to the ocean. Once home, they recover their lost blood volume within a week. Crabs are only bled once a year, and studies have shown that crabs can be harvested year after year without any ill effect to their lifespan or breeding habits.
I think it’s amazing that I’ve never even heard of this before I saw this Nova special. Horseshoe crabs are really important animals! And now that I know a little more about them, I guess they don’t look that strange. In fact, I’ll consider myself lucky if I ever see one in person.
The image of the horseshoe crab was taken from:
http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/06/delaware_horseshoe_crab_harves.php
It’s the North American horseshoe crab.
I’ve never seen a horseshoe crab in person. In fact, I learned about this topic myself recently from a Nova special on PBS, and what first got me watching the show was the sight of these really odd, lumpy-looking critters on a beach on Delaware. My first thought was – “what on earth is that thing on the beach? It looks like an old army helmet.” The show was fascinating, however, and I learned how amazing – and important – these creatures really are.
So what is a horseshoe crab?
Horseshoe crabs are arthropods, more closely related to spiders, ticks and scorpions than to other crabs. They are aquatic, and the North American species is mostly found in the Gulf of Mexico and along
the eastern shore of the North America. (There are other related species off the coasts of Japan and India.) Their bodies are shaped like teardrops, with a long tail coming off the tapered end. They have a large intestinal system, a nervous system with a bulbous brain, and a long heart that extends almost the entire length of its body. They have numerous appendages, including legs for walking, pincers (or chelicerae) for putting food in its mouth, and book gills, which are used both for breathing and for propulsion under water. Their bodies are covered with a hard, curved shell (or carapace). This shell protects the crab from predators, who have a hard time turning them over to get at their soft, edible underbellies. (It’s also this shell that makes them look like army helmets when they’re on the beach.) Their tails serve several purposes, including working as a rudder to help steer the crab when swimming and to help flip the crab over if it gets turned upside-down while out of the water.Horseshoe crabs have an amazing optical system. They have 2 compound lateral eyes, which are mostly used to find mates. They have 5 additional eyes on the top of their shells, some sensitive to visible light and other sensitive to UV. They have 2 more eyes on their undersides, located near the mouth, which may help keep the animals oriented while swimming. And if that weren’t enough, they also have photoreceptors along their tails to help coordinate their circadian rhythms. Phew! That’s a lot of eyes for one animal.
Where this critter really gets interesting is when you start talking about its blood. Back in the 1960s, Dr. Frederik Bang of Johns Hopkins University was studying horseshoe crabs in Massachusetts. He found that when common marine bacteria were injected into the bloodstream of the horseshoe crab, their blood immediately began to massively clot. While horseshoe crabs lack a sophisticated immune system, they do have a simple way of preventing infections from bacteria, fungus and viruses. Their blood contains numerous compounds that bind to and inactivate the toxic components of such invaders. In the case of bacteria, that toxic component is called endotoxin; the amebocytes bind to any endotoxin and coagulate around it, forming a thick, dense clot. This serves 2 purposes – first, the endotoxin can no longer harm the crab, and second, the entry point by which the bacteria got into the crab is sealed. It’s a simple, but extremely effective, mechanism of preventing bacterial infection.
And this is where the horseshoe crab and modern medicine meet. It turns out that you can purify the compounds in the crab’s blood that cause it to clot in the presence of endotoxin. So let’s say you have an injectable medicine, and you need to test whether or not it is pure – free from bacterial contamination. You mix the medicine with some horseshoe crab blood and watch to see whether a clot forms. If nothing happens, the medicine is clean. However, if a clot does form, that means there is endotoxin – and thus bacteria – in the medicine. And that means it cannot be injected into human patients. All injectable medicines in the US – including vaccines – must be tested against horseshoe crab blood before they are used. This makes horseshoe crab blood extremely valuable. It’s estimated that a quart of the stuff is worth $15,000!
The good news is that we don’t have to kill the crabs to get their blood. They are collected from the water and taken to a designated facility, where some of their blood is removed. In fact, up to 30% of the blood volume from a crab can be removed at any one time without injuring it. Once the collection is done, the crabs are returned to the ocean. Once home, they recover their lost blood volume within a week. Crabs are only bled once a year, and studies have shown that crabs can be harvested year after year without any ill effect to their lifespan or breeding habits.
I think it’s amazing that I’ve never even heard of this before I saw this Nova special. Horseshoe crabs are really important animals! And now that I know a little more about them, I guess they don’t look that strange. In fact, I’ll consider myself lucky if I ever see one in person.
The image of the horseshoe crab was taken from:
http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/06/delaware_horseshoe_crab_harves.php
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
“Smells like science!”
Today’s blog is a little different. I’m not going to talk about some new discovery, or a cool animal, or something from NASA, or even a scientific question I’ve always wondered about. Instead, I’m going to talk about my favorite TV show. Bear with me, this actually does have something to do with science!
The one TV show that we always watch regularly is called “Mythbusters,” and it’s been on the Discovery channel for 5 or 6 years. The premise of the show is that there are innumerable urban myths floating around our culture that people assume to be true. But are they really true? The cast of Mythbusters takes these myths and scientifically tests them to find out whether they are impossible, possible or true. (Actually, what they say on the show is whether the myth is busted, plausible or confirmed.) They test chemicals, explosives, cars, bridges, elevators, food, toys, sporting equipment, historical stories, things from the movies, boats, animal legends, famous criminal escapes… and on and on. The list of myths they have to test is seemingly endless.
There are 5 mythbusters on the show. While none of them have formal scientific training, most of them are engineers by trade, specializing in building robots, electronic gadgets and other high-tech toys. And though none of them are scientists, I am usually impressed by their ability to design and execute their experiments to test the myth of the day. Their experimental designs are highly scientific – hypothesis-driven, well controlled, and with a limited number of variables. They do their best to eliminate alternate hypotheses that could explain their results, and they seldom over-interpret what they see. All in all, I think they are actually very good scientists. (Actually, the title of this entry – “Smells like science!” – is one of the lines from my favorite cast member, Adam.)
There are many things I love about this show. First, it’s really fun. The cast works very well together, and they obviously have a lot of fun with what they do. Second, they demonstrate some really neat technology and concepts, both in science and engineering, with the robots and gadgets they make. Third, it’s fun to see the different ways that a scientific question can be tested. And finally, it’s really fun to guess whether you think a myth will be busted or confirmed – and even more fun when something that sounds completely impossible turns out to be true!
Here are some examples of the myths that have been tested on the show over the years (as well as their results):
1. If you drop a piece of toast, it will preferentially land butter-side down. (Busted – unless you drop the toast from a 5-story building.)
2. You can survive in a falling elevator if you jump right before the elevator hits the ground. (Busted – you can’t jump fast enough to counteract the speed of the falling elevator.)
3. You can carry on a conversation with someone while you are in free-fall (during parachuting). (Busted – there is too much noise from the wind.)
4. Sharks are afraid of dolphins. (Plausible – a shark is less likely to attack someone if they are swimming with a dolphin. They don’t know for sure whether this is because the shark is afraid of the dolphin, but the result was pretty clear, and supports multiple stories of shark attack victims being saved by a dolphin pod.)
5. You can stop a car from running if you jam a banana or a potato in its tailpipe. (Busted – the pressure of the exhaust pushes the banana or potato out.)
6. You can safely float to the ground from the top of a tall building if you use an umbrella as a parachute. (Busted – a huge golf umbrella will slow you down some, but it’s still a rough landing. A regular umbrella is too small to do anything.)
7. A needle in a haystack is really hard to find. (Confirmed – though that’s not surprising.)
8. In the old west, someone could be sprung from jail if you blew the bars of their cell out with a stick of dynamite. (Busted – the amount of dynamite you’d need to break the bars open would kill anyone inside the cell.)
9. You can raise a sunken boat from the bottom of the sea using ping-pong balls as ballast. (Confirmed – the only trick is getting enough ping-pong balls down there!)
As I said, this show has been on for several years now, so they have tested hundreds of myths. So if you haven’t ever watched the show, but would like to see some really fun and cool scientific principles in action, I would highly recommend that you check this show out. It’s funny, it’s goofy – but hey, it’s science!
The one TV show that we always watch regularly is called “Mythbusters,” and it’s been on the Discovery channel for 5 or 6 years. The premise of the show is that there are innumerable urban myths floating around our culture that people assume to be true. But are they really true? The cast of Mythbusters takes these myths and scientifically tests them to find out whether they are impossible, possible or true. (Actually, what they say on the show is whether the myth is busted, plausible or confirmed.) They test chemicals, explosives, cars, bridges, elevators, food, toys, sporting equipment, historical stories, things from the movies, boats, animal legends, famous criminal escapes… and on and on. The list of myths they have to test is seemingly endless.
There are 5 mythbusters on the show. While none of them have formal scientific training, most of them are engineers by trade, specializing in building robots, electronic gadgets and other high-tech toys. And though none of them are scientists, I am usually impressed by their ability to design and execute their experiments to test the myth of the day. Their experimental designs are highly scientific – hypothesis-driven, well controlled, and with a limited number of variables. They do their best to eliminate alternate hypotheses that could explain their results, and they seldom over-interpret what they see. All in all, I think they are actually very good scientists. (Actually, the title of this entry – “Smells like science!” – is one of the lines from my favorite cast member, Adam.)
There are many things I love about this show. First, it’s really fun. The cast works very well together, and they obviously have a lot of fun with what they do. Second, they demonstrate some really neat technology and concepts, both in science and engineering, with the robots and gadgets they make. Third, it’s fun to see the different ways that a scientific question can be tested. And finally, it’s really fun to guess whether you think a myth will be busted or confirmed – and even more fun when something that sounds completely impossible turns out to be true!
Here are some examples of the myths that have been tested on the show over the years (as well as their results):
1. If you drop a piece of toast, it will preferentially land butter-side down. (Busted – unless you drop the toast from a 5-story building.)
2. You can survive in a falling elevator if you jump right before the elevator hits the ground. (Busted – you can’t jump fast enough to counteract the speed of the falling elevator.)
3. You can carry on a conversation with someone while you are in free-fall (during parachuting). (Busted – there is too much noise from the wind.)
4. Sharks are afraid of dolphins. (Plausible – a shark is less likely to attack someone if they are swimming with a dolphin. They don’t know for sure whether this is because the shark is afraid of the dolphin, but the result was pretty clear, and supports multiple stories of shark attack victims being saved by a dolphin pod.)
5. You can stop a car from running if you jam a banana or a potato in its tailpipe. (Busted – the pressure of the exhaust pushes the banana or potato out.)
6. You can safely float to the ground from the top of a tall building if you use an umbrella as a parachute. (Busted – a huge golf umbrella will slow you down some, but it’s still a rough landing. A regular umbrella is too small to do anything.)
7. A needle in a haystack is really hard to find. (Confirmed – though that’s not surprising.)
8. In the old west, someone could be sprung from jail if you blew the bars of their cell out with a stick of dynamite. (Busted – the amount of dynamite you’d need to break the bars open would kill anyone inside the cell.)
9. You can raise a sunken boat from the bottom of the sea using ping-pong balls as ballast. (Confirmed – the only trick is getting enough ping-pong balls down there!)
As I said, this show has been on for several years now, so they have tested hundreds of myths. So if you haven’t ever watched the show, but would like to see some really fun and cool scientific principles in action, I would highly recommend that you check this show out. It’s funny, it’s goofy – but hey, it’s science!
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