The Why of Fly Flying

Armed with a computer video tracking system and an array of mathematical techniques researchers have revealed how the flight patterns of starved fruit flies constitute an optimal scale-free searching strategy – like the fractal patterns of a snowflake, a fly flight path appears similar whether viewed up close, or from a distance.

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The researchers also found that searching is intermittent, such that flies actively search by making tight turns, and fly straight some distance to begin searching again. Scale-free movement patterns have been found in diverse animals including zooplankton, wandering albatrosses, jackals, and even human hunter-gathers. Intermittent searchers include octopi, graylings, and mating crickets.

Andy Reynolds says, "Our results with freely flying Drosophila appear to be the first reported example of searching behaviour that is both scale-free and intermittent. This suggests that these behaviours are not part of two different searching strategies, but rather represent a single very effective and perhaps widely adopted strategy." link

Fly on the Windshield:

Free-Flight Odor Tracking in Drosophila Is Consistent with an Optimal Intermittent Scale-Free Search 2007. AM Reynolds and MA Frye. PLoS ONE 2(4): e354.

Irrational Fashion Changes Explained

New research reveals that trends in popular culture (music, fashion, baby names) come and go at surprisingly regular and predictable rate, which is fueled by very few innovators amidst millions of people copying each other.

To come up with a template of the trend-setting machine, the scientists developed computer simulations based on a system of random copying in which hundreds or thousands of individuals copy each other with 2 percent or fewer being innovators. The model predicted regular and consistent turnover rates that matched the real-world data.

Bentley found that how quickly something comes into fashion and then fades out depends on the size of the list, with a top-100 list changing much faster than a top-40 list. However, the population number had no effect on turnover rate. The scientists suggest a larger population does mean more new ideas but it also means more competition for a top spot and they balance each other out.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the study also found that the more trendsetting innovators there are in a society, the faster one trend will replace another within a particular sector. “Innovators are the cool ones who ‘pump’ new fashions into our world,” Bentley said.

Wonder Woman © DC Comics

The results suggests that the practice, common among captains of the fashion industry, of trying to handpick the next consumer “gems” amongst millions of proposals is a hopeless undertaking.

Regular rates of popular culture change reflect random copying. 2007. R.A. Bentley, et al. Evolution and Human Behavior, published online 17 January 2007.

So many fashions...spinning...dizzy...

Steve Hickman's Kong

Art © Steve Hickman

CLICK TO ENLARGE AND READ

Scanned from The Monster Times #7, 1972.

Brewed This Day: 1st Batch of Coca-Cola

In 1886, the first batch of Coca Cola was brewed over a fire in a backyard in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. John Pemberton had created the concoction as a cure for "hangover," stomach ache and headache. He advertised it as a "brain tonic and intellectual beverage," and first sold it to the public a few weeks later on 8 May. Coke contained cocaine as an ingredient until 1904, when the drug was banned by Congress. link

Who Is Hoverboy?

Only in South America would you get this:

Born This Day: Surf Board Pioneer

Tom Blake (March 8, 1902 – May 5, 1994) was the American inventor of the hollow-core surfboard. Following his first experimental hollow surfboard in 1926, his innovative, hollow-core surf/paddle boards dominated the surfing world until the late 1940's. It became standard rescue equipment in California's early lifeguard corps.

Early surfboard designs consisted of solid wooden boards dating back to the ancient Hawaiians, these new-concept, lighter boards were an immediate success and became extremely important in the evolution of the modern surfboard. In the 1930's he made the first major design advancement with the invention of fins. Before this, a surfer had to use his back foot to make the board turn. link Images © Rick Griffin

Journey To The Center of The Sinkhole

Cave Carson © DC Comics

Scientists return this week to the world’s deepest known sinkhole, Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, to resume tests of a NASA-funded robot called DEPTHX, designed to survey and explore for life in one of Earth’s most extreme regions and potentially in outer space. Sinking more than 1,000 feet, Zacatón has only been partially mapped and its true depth remains unknown.

The system’s unusual hydrothermal nature is analogous to liquid oceans under the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Technology developed to explore the sinkholes could be applied to future space probes of Europa, where scientists believe that deep cracks and holes in the ice offer a chance of finding extraterrestrial life.

Microbes which appear to be new to science have been discovered floating in deep water and lining rocks in Zacatón. Far below sunlight’s ability to penetrate, they may get their energy from nutrients welling up from hot springs. Gary and others speculate that previously undocumented life may await discovery in the murky depths.

Unique in the world of robotic explorers, DEPTHX is autonomous. The probe does not rely on instructions from humans to decide where to go or what to do. It creates 3D maps of previously unexplored areas as it swims along and then uses those same maps to navigate back to the surface.

Doctoral student Marcus Gary SCUBA dives with the DEPTHX probe during initial in-water tests at The University of Texas at Austin Applied Research Laboratories wet test facility.

Cenote Zacatón first achieved notoriety when two divers attempted to reach the bottom in 1994. One of them, Sheck Exley, died in the attempt. The other, Jim Bowden, survived, descending to a record depth of 925 feet. The outcome caused scientists to rethink ways that Zacatón could be explored safely. link

Journey To The Center Of The Earth (1959)

Watching The Brain See The Future

Scientists can now "read" a person’s intentions from their brain activity. This is made possible by a new combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and sophisticated computer algorithms. The researchers were able to recognize the subjects intentions with 70% accuracy based alone on their brain activity - even before the participants had seen the numbers and had started to perform the calculation.

Saturn Girl & Superboy © DC Comics

The trick by which the invisible is made visible lies in a new method called "multivariate pattern recognition". A computer is programmed to recognize characteristic activation patterns in the brain that typically occur in association with specific thoughts. Once this computer has been "trained" it can be used to predict the decisions of subjects from their brain activity alone. An important technical innovation also lies in combining information across extended regions of the brain to strongly increase sensitivity.

In the future it will be possible to read even abstract thoughts and intentions out of a person’s brain.

Brain regions from which it was possible to "read out" peoples' intentions. In specific regions fine-grained patterns of brain activity showed slight differences depending on whether a person was preparing to perform an addition or a subtraction. From activity patterns in the green regions it was possible to read out covert intentions before subjects began to perform the calculation. From the regions marked in red it was possible to read out intentions that were already being acted upon.

Ref.: Reading hidden intentions in the human brain. 2007. John-Dylan Haynes, et al. Current Biology, February 20th, 2007 (online: February 8th).