The Internet. It’s good isn’t it. Vast swathes of information, both real and strange through-the-looking-glass versions of the truth, available with mere clicks of the mouse. It’s fair to say that in the Western world the tentacles of the Net are tickling people everywhere.
And talking of tentacles, Peter Gabriel is keen to extend the Internet’s reach to animals. Yes, that Peter Gabriel, who we’ll never forgive for leaving Genesis, a band of hippy prog idiots to start with but who, due to losing the lead singer, appointed Phil Collins instead. I mean, jeez, it could only have been worse if Petey boy teamed up with a monkey for a song. Oh, turns out he did that, too, jamming with a Bonobo to create a track. Seriously.
Anyway, now his latest bright idea – in conjunction with Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the modern Internet, plus MIT’s Neil Gershenfeld – is to develop a touchscreen device so that dolphins can connect to the Net. Pfft, what a crock. Weekender reckons they’ll just spend all day trawling for hardcore prawn.
To completely change the subject, scientists noticed also recently that bearded capuchin monkeys lay their nuts flat before hitting them with stones. Palm nuts, that is: analysis of videos featuring tool use by the monkeys showed them regularly placing their goodies in the best position to crack open on a rock. Which is pretty cool, if a little obvious.
What’s a bit less obvious is that getting pregnant can make your feet grow. A study published by the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, said that foot arches flatten out, maybe because of extra weight and looser joints.
“We found that pregnancy does indeed lead to permanent changes in the feet,” said Professor Neil Segal of the University of Iowa, which conducted a study of 49 women during the first trimester of pregnancy and then five months after they dropped their sprogs. Apparently the effect is more measurable for the first ankle-biter than subsequent progeny.
Tufts University wins the most spammily-titled research paper of the week for Ectopic Eyes Outside the Head in Xenopus Tadpoles Provide Sensory Data For Light-Mediated Learning. Even better, the authors removed embryo eye cells from frog tadpoles and then grafted them onto their butts (the tadpoles’, not the scientists. That would be weird.) Turns out that if these grafted eye cells are plugged into the spinal column, the tadpoles could still react to light sources in the same way as non-messed-about-with ones. Seems that in science – as on the Internet – virtually everything that can be thought of is being done somewhere or other. Hmm, Sledgehammer wasn’t a bad video now we come to think of it.
Related Videos
