Fossil or beehive?
A new celebrity lookalike currently resides on a rock near Bhopal, India, drawing gossip as to whether it is (a) a fossil of a long-extinct creature known as Dickinsonia tenuis, or (b) the decayed remnants of a not very-old beehive.
The journal Gondwana Research published an almost-licking-its-chops-in-delight by scientists at the University of Rajasthan and the University of Florida. 鈥淸W]e note the structural similarities between 鈥�Dickinsonia鈥� and honey and pollen stores of recently decayed bee nests,鈥� they write. Onwards they snipe, adding: 鈥淢oreover, we note the presence of myriad giant honeybee hives within the rock crevices that show remarkable similarities to the purported fossil of Dickinsonia鈥�.
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The opposing case 鈥� that it is a glamorous fossil 鈥� was with equal but opposite happiness two years ago in the same journal. The it鈥檚-a-fossil team comprises researchers from the Geological Survey of India, the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, and institutions in the US. 鈥�Dickinsonia remains the most iconic and controversial of the dazzling array of Ediacaran fossils now known worldwide,鈥� they proclaimed. 鈥淗ere we report three newly discovered fossils as the first record of the genus from India.鈥�
This kind of is-it-or-isn鈥檛-it confusion isn鈥檛 unusual. It glares from the titles of two other reports: 鈥淭he saga of the false fossil foram Eozoon鈥� ( this year) and (out in 2006).
And the snideness? That isn鈥檛 unusual, either. Nor is it new. In 1934, the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences printed a report called .
Quantum black holes
Construct a list of every possible phrase that can be made by combining 17 words chosen at random from an English-language dictionary. One of those 17-word phrases will be: 鈥淚t is thereby expected that all sufficiently advanced civilizations ultimately employ black holes in their quantum computers.鈥�
That exact phrase appears in a new study, . Our own civilisation is already seeking advancement, as shown by several patent applications on file internationally. These are stuffed with ideas such as 鈥� and quanta of confidence.
Music for unrelaxing
A project at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt, Germany, is looking into the 鈥渆ffects of disliked music on psychophysiology鈥�. The , as described by Julia Merrill, Taren-Ida Ackermann and Anna Czepiel, is both painstaking and painsgiving. They say that 鈥減articipants listened to three self-selected disliked musical pieces which evoked highly unpleasant feelings鈥�.
They assess the changes evident in listeners鈥� bodies: heart rate, skin conductance response and body temperature that each reflect 鈥渉igher arousal鈥� and reactions in three facial muscles. These are the levator labii associated with disgust, the corrugator supercilii that typically indicates anger and the zygomaticus major, which is linked to distress and grimacing. The reactions are most prominent, they say, when people listen to music of the 鈥渧ery unpleasant鈥� variety.
Merrill, Ackermann and Czepiel do make it clear that this unpleasantness isn鈥檛 the entirety of music鈥檚 effects on all humans. They assure us that 鈥減revious research has shown the positive effects of music listening in response to one鈥檚 favorite music鈥�.
Slime mould watch
A new variety of smartwatch is like Tamagotchi, but with real life to it 鈥� it is partly slime mould.
Tamagotchi, the electronic artificial pet that isn鈥檛 much bigger than a wristwatch, entranced millions when it arrived on the market a quarter of a century ago. Its Japanese inventors, Akihiro Yokoi of Wiz Company and Aki Maita of Bandai Company, won the 1997 Ig Nobel prize for economics for .
Now, Jasmine Lu and Pedro Lopes at the University of Chicago have created a smartwatch that is partly made of a slime mould (Physarum), a living entity that must be fed adequately and often enough or else the watch will stop running. As Lu and Lopes explain: 鈥淭he slime mold grows to form an electrical wire鈥� If the user does not care for the slime mold, it enters a dormant stage and is not conductive. The users can resuscitate it by resuming care.鈥� The care is fairly simple: give the slime mould a regular diet of water and oats.
Lu and Lopes say they their smartwatch by having humans wear it for nine to 14 days. 鈥淲e found that participants felt a sense of responsibility, developed a reciprocal relationship, and experienced the organism鈥檚 growth as a source of affect.鈥�
Tamagotchi itself now comes in the . The newest version of the old toy still 鈥渓ives鈥� via traditional electronics though. Its guts and nervous system depend not at all on slime mould, but on the combined power of an electrical battery and, like the Chicago smartwatch, the diligent attention (or not) of its human owner.
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