Archive for the 'Odds and Ends' Category

Heterodontus Portusjacksoni

The intense pressure of natural selection has given us many magnificent examples of optimized design in nature. Here is a lovely case: the dentition of Heterodontus Portusjacksoni, the Port Jackson shark. I saw these jaws at a nature museum and just had to snap a photo…

Heterodontus Portusjacksoni shark jaws

This shark has unusual teeth – none of the flesh-ripping daggers that the “Jaws” movie brought to fame (while giving sharks a bad name that may help drive them to extinction). It feeds on mollusks, and uses the tiny spiked teeth in front to grab them and the blunt ones in the back to crush them.

But what I found most appealing is the geometrical structure of the entire set, which has a mathematical elegance and hints at a similarly elegant growth mechanism. One can imagine that the whole complexity of these teeth is generated in one continuous process governed by a very simple equation. Just like a fractal…

Math and nature and beauty, all in one chunk of bone! Heterodontus Portusjacksoni shark jaw close-up

Education and Fun in a boxful of seeds

Children in Oregon can enjoy giant redwood forests… but here in the holy land a semi-arid climate and millennia of human abuse force us to make do with less. Still, the humble grasses, weeds, wildflowers and thorny shrubs that we do have make an exuberant comeback every spring; and they remind me of an unforgettable nature study assignment given us by my elementary school teacher long ago.

The idea was simple: we had to collect as many different fruits of wild plants as we could find. These we had to pack in small cellophane sachets and bring them to class. Sounded trivial… until, a few weeks later, I had close to 100 different specimens, enough to fill a shoebox (the universal storage solution in those pre-Ikea days). That box is long gone, but I stopped at a nearby field and shot two photos of species that must’ve been in it back then.

Plant fruitPlant fruit

In addition to the obvious fun of having to hunt through the fields, we learned two lessons: that there is a huge diversity of plant life (after all, we filled our boxes within walking distance of our homes); and that plants were fascinating! We were afforded a first hand look into nature’s manifold ingenious ways to solve the problem of seed dispersal; you can bet we also took the time to open the fruits and see how they worked…

In case you doubt this is interesting, here is a section through the fruit of the unremarkable-looking plant in the left photo. See the burrs that attach to passing animals (or kids!); the skin that is designed to break open when dry; and the seeds that would spill out at that time. Fascinating – yes, even for an adult!…

Seed pods

Grace Hopper as Susan Calvin

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (1906-1992) was one of the legendary pioneers of computing in the 20th century; among other achievements she had written the first compiler. Here is a well-known photo of her with some colleagues at the console of a Univac-1 computer back in 1957.

Grace Hopper next to Univac 1 console,1957

And whenever I see this photo, I am reminded vividly of Dr. Susan Calvin, Robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men Corporation, as featured in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot. I don’t mean the silly action movie starring Will Smith; that had Dr. Calvin as a sexy young chick. In the book (which is much different and way better) Calvin is a strict, prim, spinsterish lady who clearly feels more at home with robots than among humans, whom she treats with a dispassionate aloofness most of the time. She is also the smartest human in the book, by a large margin; an ultimate Geek, in fact.

There are those who claim that Hopper was Asimov’s model for his heroine; be that as it may, if I had to imagine Susan Calvin (the real one, so to speak), I would go no farther than Grace Hopper in this picture. There she sits, the only woman in a male-dominated environment, professional and intelligent and focused on her technological specialty.

Hats off to both these grand ladies of Geekdom, past and future!

Food labeling we’d like to see…

Most food products have nutrition information labels that tell you in minute detail what they contain, from calorie count to milligrams of Sodium. All very edifying, to be sure, but boooring!

So the other day I saw this box of cookies, and below the logo of the English Cake bakery it says – in Hebrew – “Very tasty“!

English Cake cookies

Isn’t this something they should add to every food label? We could have cookies labeled “Very tasty“, “Tasty“, “So-so“, or “Yecch!“, just like the “Hot”, “Medium” and and “Mild” on Salsa jars. Now, wouldn’t that be useful to us consumers? 🙂

Bike stuntmen, Munich awaits you!

Pedestrian crossing light in MunichI’ve already addressed pedestrian crossing signals in Germany, but here’s a truly surprising one, which I sighted in Munich.

So what does it mean? One can imagine what the intended usage is, but if one were to believe the images literally, this signal tells you when it’s OK to do acrobatic stunts on your bike in the middle of the road, and when it is not…

What a Circus-friendly city Munich must be! 🙂

Nothing new under the sun

Everyone knows that sport fans can get violent in their excitement… there is even a Wikipedia article listing violent spectator incidents in sports. This being an aspect of human nature, it is not surprising that the custom of berating and clobbering the opposite team’s supporters goes back to earlier times. Still, I was quite amused when I saw this fresco in the archeological museum of Naples:

Pompeii amphitheatre violence

This picture, from the wall of a house in Pompeii, depicts a memorable historical event from AD 59, which is described by Tacitus in his Annals (Book XIV, 17):

About the same date, a trivial incident led to a serious affray between the inhabitants of the colonies of Nuceria and Pompeii, at a gladiatorial show presented by Livineius Regulus … During an exchange of raillery, typical of the petulance of country towns, they resorted to abuse, then to stones, and finally to steel; the superiority lying with the populace of Pompeii, where the show was being exhibited.

And indeed, the fresco shows the agitated fans running inside and around the stadium, with some first victims already on the ground. The actual casualty count was higher by far:

As a result, many of the Nucerians were carried maimed and wounded to the capital, while a very large number mourned the deaths of children or of parents.

The outcome, in fact, was dire for the Pompeiians: the emperor (the infamous Nero) delegated to the senate, and the ruling was that

the Pompeians as a community were debarred from holding any similar assembly for ten years, and the associations which they had formed illegally were dissolved. Livineius and the other fomenters of the outbreak were punished with exile.

Nothing new under the sun…

Image: Wikimedia.

Every comfort for the Baby Executive!

Herman Mille Aeron chairThe Herman Miller Aeron chair is a well known design icon with its unconventional appearance, its ventilated mesh fabric and its level of comfort (only rivalled, naturally, by its price tag). And of course, there are countless clones that emulate its mesh and looks at a lower cost. How far this copycat trend has gone I realized when confronted with the Graco Aerologic, a mesh chair with a classy name of its own. I was so impressed that I snapped some photos for your enjoyment:
Graco Aerologic baby car seat

Note how this chair has the same impressive mesh seat popularized by Herman Miller, as well as fancy faux leather padding on the back. This is a great executive chair… for babies, of course. No baby exec would enter his Rolls without one of these! 🙂

And as a last touch for the successful little angel, the Aerologic also comes with a vital accessory – a retractable cup holder. Two of them, in fact!

Graco Aerologic cupholder

Hats off to ancient Egyptian medicine

Egypt today has its problems, but a few millennia ago the land along the Nile was a center of power, technology and culture. We all know of its monumental achievements in architecture; what is less widely known is that the Egyptians had a very advanced medical knowledge.

So what do you do, if a worker finishing the nose of the sphinx has just dropped his hammer on the head of a coworker down below? Why, you bring the injured guy to a doctor, who then consults his library and comes up with this:

Instructions concerning a gaping wound in his head, penetrating to the bone.

If thou examinest a man having a gaping wound in his head, penetrating to the bone, thou shouldst lay thy hand upon it (and) thou shouldst palpate his wound. If thou findest his skull uninjured, not having a perforation in it…
Thou shouldst say regarding him:One having a gaping wound in his head. An ailment which I will treat.
Thou shouldst bind fresh meat upon it the first day; thou shouldst apply for him two strips of linen, and treat afterward with grease, honey, (and) lint every day until he recovers.
As for: “Two strips of linen,” it means two bands of linen which one applies upon the two lips of the gaping wound in order to cause that one join to the other.

This is Case #2 in the Smith Papyrus, an Egyptian medical treatise from the 17th century BC. It covers 48 cases, from smashed skulls to flesh wounds, each discussed with the same clarity we see above: a title, a description of symptoms, a diagnosis and a treatment course. Not all of them are as easy as the one above; for instance, take Case #6:

Instructions concerning a gaping wound in his head, penetrating to the bone, smashing his skull, (and) rending open the brain of his skull.

If thou examinest a man having a gaping wound in his head, penetrating to the bone, smashing his skull, (and) rending open the brain of his skull, thou shouldst palpate his wound. Shouldst thou find that smash which is in his skull like those corrugations which form in molten copper, (and) something therein throbbing (and) fluttering under thy fingers, like the weak place of an infant’s crown before it becomes whole-when it has happened there is no throbbing (and) fluttering under thy fingers until the brain of his (the patient’s) skull is rent open-(and) he discharges blood from both his nostrils, (and) he suffers with stiffness in his neck…
Thou shouldst say concerning him:An ailment not to be treated.” . . .

Part of the Smith Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian medical textThis last does not mean that the guy has no insurance; indeed, the scroll goes on to specify how he will be treated, but only with palliative care, waiting to see if nature will (miraculously) manage.

Note the incredible degree of diagnostic expertise in this example. Those Egyptians knew their trade all right.

But what I like most about this textbook from another age is how for each case, the doctor must declare the prognosis and articulate his conclusion: “This is X: an ailment which I will treat“, or “This is Y: an ailment not to be treated“. There are even some marginal cases of “an ailment with which I will fight with“.

You can read an early translation of the entire scroll here, or play with an interactive version (with a newer translation) here.

Now, that is one UGLY dino…

Here is a skull that used to belong to a smallish plant-eating dinosaur, and as he doesn’t need it any more, it is on display at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.

Stygimoloch Spinifer skull

When I saw this exhibit, I couldn’t avoid a flash of recognition: this guy looks just like the devil! It isn’t just the horns, or the reddish tint… it’s the whole countenance of the beast, the evil toothy grin, the scaly look, that je ne sais quoi that has become part of the prince of hell’s iconic look in Western culture.

And indeed, the similarity hasn’t been lost on its discoverers who named this beauty Stygimoloch Spinifer – “horned devil from the Styx”.

Here is another view of the same specimen:

Stygimoloch spinifer skull

One ugly devil of a dinosaur, if you ask me…

Only a smile

I wrote before about the impact of a cheerful nature on the customer service experience. Well – here is another example.

We were visiting the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin (recommended! A 200 year old Natural History museum, like the one at Dublin I wrote about once, but artfully modernized and with some really big dinosaurs thrown in!)  It being in winter, we obviously headed first for the cloakroom where we dumped a few kilograms of insulation; and we started on the task of deciphering a sign on the wall  to figure the fee we’d have to pay.

At which point the young lady at the counter, perceiving our linguistic struggle, said to us in English: “It costs only a smile!” …  and she proceeded to illustrate with a charming one of her own, invoking a return in kind.

What a lovely welcome!