Category: Science & Technology

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If you give a mouse a Mountain Dew

We’ve all heard some of the food horror stories: animal and human body parts found mixed amongst the fries; things found packaged in the factory. Often these are just tales. But there’s an interesting twist to this one.

Around 2009, a man named Ronald Ball claimed he bought a can of Mountain Dew from a vending machine which contained the remains of a mouse. That is disturbing! Perhaps more disturbing was the response that PepsiCo filed with the court an 8 April 2010. An affidavit from Lawrence McGill, a licensed veterinarian with a speciality in veterinary pathology stated that after a mouse submerged in Mountain Dew for 30 days would “have been transformed into a ‘jelly-like’ substance.” I’ll give you a moment to ponder that while I take a sip of my beverage.

Is this possible? Would leaving a mouse in a can of Mountain Dew actually cause it to dissolve? Let’s try science!

Explorer Multimedia helps find the truth with an experiment where they soak a rodent in Mountain Dew for 30 days. You might not want to view this over lunch.

There you have it! Clearly Ronald Ball was having us on. Shame on you, Ronald! And, may I add? EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

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Does anyone still think animals are dumb?

Photo of Alvin the bearded dragon
Alvin, a bearded dragon, is our official lucky lizard, live and on display
torgo
The late, great Torgo titled “Random lizard at Museum of the Weird” by Mike M (Oct 2012)

At the Museum of the Weird we have Alvin, our official lucky lizard. He’s been with us for about seven years or so. We’ve had a number of other live animals around, including our beloved Torgo, a Nile Monitor who was with us for many years before finally succumbing to old age. Anyone who has spent time with animals knows that they are capable of connection. I know someone who is very fond of birds and experiences affection from them. We certainly feel it with our lizards.

Of course, there are still those who don’t get that. Perhaps some of the continued explorations of science will cause people to rethink their ideas about lesser animals.

In these fascinating videos from the University of Lincoln we see examples of animals that you would not normally think of as smart demonstrating their ability to learn some extraordinary things. This first video shows a bearded dragon, like Alvin, who has learned by watching how to open the door to his cage. Previously, this sort of imitation was thought to only occur in higher level creatures.

Next we see a tortoise who has learned how to use a touch screen.

Surely anyone who spends enough time around animals discovers that they have their own kinds of complex interactions with the world. As we connect with them, rather than simply trying to control them or observe them, we find that there is surprising overlap. Is that honestly so weird?

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Are mutant mosquitoes a good idea?

According to an article from Collective Evolution millions of genetically modified mosquitoes are set to be released. Here’s a news report from a channel in Fort Meyers, Florida.

I don’t pretend to be a scientific expert in this area and I do believe in progress through science, but a few questions come to mind:

  • The report says that the mosquitoes will be manually sexed so that no females are released. (Apparently this is done by looking at the antennae.) How would you like to have that job?
  • If any of the females are missed and someone is bitten could that have any unforeseen affects? I’m guessing that part of the testing was for Oxitec to be bitten by a few of them.

If this happens it will be a grand experiment. Either it will all work exactly as predicted and these mutants will create a lot of benefit for the population by reducing pests and the disease that they carry. If not—well, there are plenty of comic books that suggest the possibilities. In either case we will know.

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We get a flying car?

A few days ago in my post about the guy making a warp drive in his garage I mentioned that I didn’t get my flying car. Then I find this demo video, complete with dramatic Euro music.

This isn’t exactly what some of us imagined when we thought of a flying car. Essentially this is an airplane that you can drive in traffic. I imagine it will still require a pilot’s license. It also requires a conventional runway to take off and land. However, it is a flying car. We can’t complain that they didn’t deliver.

I’m thinking more about the vertical take off and landing (VTOL) sort of design. There is something in the works but, as you can see in this video, it leaves a bit to be desired.

This model, produced by Moller International, only goes about 10 feet up in the air. Looking at it I imagine it’s something like running several lawn mowers together, so it may not be that smooth, luxurious ride you may crave.

Who knows? The automobile evolved pretty quickly from its horseless carriage origins. Maybe the flying car will do the same.

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Man Invents Warp Drive in his Garage

What would you say if I told you that there is a guy in Omaha working on building a warp drive—as in “Mr. Sulu, ahead warp factor 2” kind of warp drive? When we are dealing with science this deep we like to get an explanation from guys like Doctor Michio Kaku. Is warp speed even possible?

OK… so maybe it is. If it is, is it available to us in this lifetime. NASA has apparently been exploring this, but we are pulling for Dave Pares, a professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, has been working on the warp problem out of his garage! His Space Warp Project is a privately funded effort that may actually get this done. Here is a video where Professor Pares talks about his vision. (It’s a little more low-key that Dr. Kaku.)

So, does this mean we’ll all be travelling at warp speeds soon? We were all promised jet packs and flying cars, but we haven’t seen much from them. We’re optimistic, though. There’s nothing more inspiring than mad science in a personal lab. If we all send a little good mojo maybe we can get off this rock and start exploring the galaxy properly!

 

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Armchair spelunking

As shown in our recent post about weird inventions, technology goes in lots of different directions. In this case, technology will take you somewhere wonderful without every having to leave your chair.

Use your mouse to explore Vietnam's Son Doong cave
Use your mouse to explore Vietnam’s Son Doong cave

National Geographic has created a stunning interactive tool that will let you explore this wonder of nature, walking through each zone and looking around as though you were there. The 360° views let you look all around and up into the dizzying heights of the cave.

If you like armchair exploring, you’re not just relegated to tours. the PhET project provides simulations for physics, biology, chemistry and other sciencey-wiencey stuff.

Do you know a virtual adventure that we should know about? Share it with us!

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Cloning dinosaurs

Hundreds of thousands poured into theatres this weekend to experience Jurassic World. While movie-goers are excited, not everyone is thrilled about the film. Some palaeontologists are preparing themselves for all of the stupid questions they will have to answer about dinosaur cloning. So, do we need to worry about a Jurassic Park disaster?

https://youtu.be/duTJP-ePewU

There you have it. Based on what we currently understand about cloning, we don’t have any way to regenerate a dinosaur. We’re just going to have to rely on time travel. Of course, there are other historic creatures that are within the reasonable DNA half-life, including Neanderthal Man. In this interview with Spiegel from several years ago, scientist, George Church, discusses the plausibility of cloning a Neanderthal Man and other topics that may shock or delight you. Church denied that he was seeking an “Adventurous Woman,”  as some reported, to be a surrogate for a baby Neanderthal. We don’t know if he didn’t get a volunteer or if there were too many. (Can you just imagine the email?)

Photo of Alvin the bearded dragon
Alvin, a bearded dragon, is our official lucky lizard, live and on display

Are these places where science dare not go? If someone discovers a way around the half-life issue or wants to explore brining back a woolly mammoth or Neanderthal should we be worried or buy tickets? As host to the one and only Iceman, we would love to have a pet dinosaur. I guess we’ll have to be content to enjoy our lucky lizard, Alvin, on display in the museum.

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Falling with style

It’s a shame that some inventions never caught on. Imagine how stylish flying would have been if the Hoop-Skirt parachute idea, described in the January 1911 edition of Popular Mechanics, had caught on. It’s possible that the manly men at the time balked at the idea of being seen in something that could at any time resemble a skirt. It’s also possible that the idea didn’t really work and they would simply plummet to their death… leaving a good-looking corpse.

Fiske Reading Machine
Portable library, 1920s style

Another idea in the early 20th century was the first book killer. Long before gadgets like computer tablets, inventors already had their sights set on fixing the problem of carrying around cumbersome books. The June 1922 edition of Scientific American shows one solution. The Fiske Reading Machine printed books in tiny print and provided a modified magnifying glass that you could hold up to your eye to read. One can only imagine how this would work on a bumpy carriage ride.

It’s easy to laugh at these things now, but you never know how the next great thing will appear. It might seem like the famous Inside the Egg Egg Scrambler by Ronco. It might end up being sliced bread.

Think that egg scrambler idea is dead? You haven’t been watching Kickstarter. People will do just anything to avoid cleaning that fork and bowl!

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AC vs DC: the Battle’s Not Over

You’ve probably heard about the epic battle between inventors, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla about how electricity would be delivered to the masses. If not, this video will catch you up.

As the video shows, Edison’s campaign was pretty grim. He was convinced that AC power was unsafe and publicly electrocuted a number of animals, including an aging elephant, to prove it. AC had advantages for cheaply delivering power over long distances, so it ultimately won out…or did it.

In this article, Will Tesla Batteries Force Home Wiring to go Low Voltage?, innovations in battery technologies developed by Tesla Motors may force homes and appliances to rewire for DC to be more efficient. The irony of this is staggering. A company inspired by and named for Nikola Tesla may reverse a long-standing convention and get us closer to Edison’s original vision for power distribution.

It makes one wonder if their battle may continue wherever they may be, if they might look at what their creations have wrought and continue to keep score.

You might also be interested in Edison’s device for contacting the dead. We’ll be examining this in more detail soon.

 

 

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Bizarre medicine

patient_in_a_cage
Punishment? No! Cure! This cage was a 1909 treatment for Arteriosclerosis. Click the picture for the article in a 1909 science magazine.

There may be a reason why what doctors do is called “practice.” While medicine has become a more rigorous science over time, the history of medicine is filled with things that would have you swear that people were just making things up.

The picture shows a man in a cage. It’s not some sort of medieval torture, it’s a device that was designed to treat Arteriosclerosis. The cage is attached to some electrical equipment that would make Victor Von Frankenstein proud.

Of course, while we laugh at some of these crazy medical practices of the past, we may not be much better today. In the far future will people look with horror on how we used radiation and chemicals to battle disease? Will what we see as the most sophisticated and compassionate medical techniques look like poking holes in people’s skulls with a rock to let out the bad spirits?

Here’s a video featuring 10 of the most bizarre medical practices in history.