Our nest emptying out again with grandkids going back to school
After raising 5 children, my wife and I never imagined that we would again experience the bittersweet beginning of a school year and the ambivalent feelings about the coming peace and quiet. However, the pandemic brought a surprising year-plus of us hosting school for a kindergartener (pictured) and a third grader. On Tuesday these two will advance to their next levels—in person once again.
It seems to me that our at-home school kids did well academically—possibly even better at a distance than in class. But they will do well for overall development by getting back in touch with their peers and teachers…no doubt.
Unfortunately, based on Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments, the disruption in State-wide education caused by the pandemic caused an alarming downturn in students meeting their grade standards, particularly in math and science.* The hit on math education (relative to reading) extended nation-wide as graphically illustrated in this August 15th post by The 74. Alarming!
Let’s hope that our students and teachers can withstand the Delta and newer Covid-19 variants until vaccines become available for all school age children. Now is the time to go full STEAM ahead (not overlooking “arts” in the quest for more science, engineering and math).
*See this 8/27/21 report by MPR News: MN state test scores reveal deep impact to child learning during pandemic
Tomatoes may turn you into a zombie
Posted by mark in Nature, Uncategorized on August 24, 2021
The latest issue of Chemical & Engineering News reports alerted me to the discovery by a team of Brazilian botanists that tomatoes communicate sensory information back to their parent plant. The scientists worked this out by letting a hungry caterpillar gorge on wired-up Micro Toms much like my ripening cherry tomatoes (pictured). This seems a bit callous to me from the perspective of a plant. However, it is sweet for the sake of science (and the future butterfly).
Based on statistical analysis of the variation in signals*, the researchers concluded that the tomato plant sensed its fruit being eaten. Therefore, they hypothesized that the parent could fight back by emitting chemicals such as this one discovered by a University of Wisconsin biologist that makes attacking caterpillars eat each other .
Be careful the next time you squeeze tomatoes on the vine to check their ripeness—they might not like it and take revenge by turning you into a zombie. (Wow, that took a dark turn!)
* For experimental details, see Fruit Herbivory Alters Plant Electrome: Evidence for Fruit-Shoot Long-Distance Electrical Signaling in Tomato Plants, Frontiers of Sustainable Food Systems, 20 July 2021.
Squirrels best Olympian gymnasts and jumpers for acrobatics
As reported by the New York Times on Thursday, this month’s Science features amazing experimental results that illustrate how squirrels learn to leap and land on tree branches without falling. Cognitive scientists and biomechanics experts at the University of California, Berkeley, put wild fox squirrels to a test that varied distance and flexibility of branches for a payoff of peanuts.
The wily rodents adapted to challenging conditions by bouncing off walls like parkour athletes, which you can see in this video posted by Independent.
The researchers concluded that “the squirrels’ remarkable and consistent success was due to a combination of learned impulse generation when assessing the balance between distance and branch flexibility and the addition of innovative leaps and landings in the face of increasingly difficult challenges.”
By the way, these Berkeley boffins hope to translate their newly discovered squirrely techniques into smarter robots. That is very alarming!
For even more a-maze-ing feats, check out this YouTube video posted recently by Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer, who goes all out to stymie squirrels with ingenious backyard obstacles:
PS: After years of trial and error, I finally defeated my bird-feed thieving backyard squirrels by mounting a Perky-Pet 340 Transparent 16-Inch Squirrel Baffler in wobbly fashion on the metal pole, and placing it away from any nearby branches and structures. : )
Flipping out with frisbees
This weekend I enjoyed a nine-hole round of disc golf—a great way to enliven an outdoor walk via some friendly competition and the satisfying clink of chains when making a shot.
The trick is to control the pitch of the aerodynamic platters. They must be thrown at an angle that better players than me, such as my oldest son Ben, refer to as ‘hyzers’ or ‘anhyzers’. I am not quite sure which is which. All I can think of when he tries to explain the difference is that I really need a six pack of Anheuser-Busch beer when my anhyzer throw goes off into a bush, which happens far too often.
Check out this greatest shot (an anhyzer?) in disc golf history by World Champion James Conrad earlier this month.
Getting back to beer, this recent report by Ars Technica provides a ‘heads-up’ on why coasters fly so poorly—flipping on average only a half second into their flight. See all the details in Beer Mats make bad Frisbees published by three German physicists last month. Evidently “the crucial effect responsible for the flipping is found to be the lift attacking not in the center of mass but slightly offset to the forward edge”, which “induces a torque leading to a precession towards backspin orientation.” Now you know! It’s not that you are drinking too much due to being quarantined too long during the pandemic. Whew!
Squids out of water seeking escape from vicious double-jawed eels
Posted by mark in Nature, Uncategorized on June 23, 2021
Two science reports on squids caught my eye today. On the one hand, the New York Times informed me that “When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That’s a Moray”. It’s not so funny for the squid who get sucked down off of dry land by creatures with two jaws—an outer one to seize their prey and an inner one that leaps forward to drag it deeper. That’s really creepy. If you have a strong stomach, check out this video by Rita S. Mehta, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She and her colleague report all the gory experimental details in this month’s Journal of Experimental Biology.
The second bit of news about squids—this one from Complex—seems a bit cheerier: NASA Launches Dozens of Baby Squid Into Space for Experiment. Learn more about this mission by University of Florida researcher Jamie Foster here. Check out the video of the cute little baby squids. Far out!
PS: Heads up: Squids can fly, as detailed in this January 2021 TED-Ed video:
Marshmallows and s’mores—an underappreciated wonder of food science
My family gathered around a campfire recently to enjoy s’mores—a tasty sandwich made with graham crackers, milk chocolate bars and marshmallows.
The trickiest part of putting together these calorific concoctions is the roasting. I prefer sticking my marshmallows in just the right place where they turn golden brown. Others just go for the burn and blow out the flames quickly enough to keep the ashes from overwhelming the gooey sweetness. Either way, most s’more fans take their marshmallows for granted, never realizing their precise chemistry.
I became enlightened when Chemical and Engineering News in their 4/28 issue* explained how the three ingredients in marshmallows—sugar, corn syrup, and gelatin—“come together in a complex chemical dance to make your taste buds sing.”
The trick is to put these components together in just the right ratios so they can be foamed with air into a stable form. This only works because of the elasticity provided by the gelatin—a triple helix. Furthermore, gelatin is thermo-reversible, so it can melt and reset. Even better, it does so at just the right temperature to melt in your mouth.
Check out this new video showing how to make s’mores completely from scratch—far more delicious than using store-bought ingredients.
Savor s’mores and their association with good times around a campfire. But also, appreciate the unique combination of their ingredients, as well as the science behind them that makes such a sweet sensation of smooth chewiness. Yum!
*Reference: What’s in marshmallows, and how do the ingredients work together to make ooey-gooey treats?.
Experiment airs dirty laundry
This headline by BBC Science Focus Magazine caught my eye the other day: “Scientists are burying 2,000 pairs of underpants in Switzerland.” What in the world?
Further research revealed that this is a ‘thing’ for those who love their mother earth: Bury your briefs (provided they be 100 percent cotton). Then dig them up later and inspect their holiness, that is, degradation due to desirable microorganisms in your earth.
“The more active microorganisms live in the soil, the faster and the more holistically the underpants will be eaten up.”
– Swiss research institute Agroscope
The BBC reports that volunteers will each receive two pairs of pants, along with tea bags as a control. One will be dug up after a month, the other after two months and both analyzed for holes. My observations:
- It is good that the scientists leave nothing to chance by not allowing helpers to bury their personal underwear. (Yuk!)
- This is a great example of a paired tea test (inside statistical joke).
Some farmers in southern Minnesota buried their undies a few years ago and discovered them to be completely disintegrated after only a couple of months—nothing left but the elastic bands. That is not surprising given the incredible fertility of land down there. As you can see in this report by MPR News, the remnants serve well for scaring off crows. However, I question the organizers’ judgement for naming this experiment “Soil Your Undies.” That is just gross.
For a more scientific approach to this methodology for assessing the quality of your soil, see this 2015 report from a research technician at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture. However, though attention getting, using actual underwear versus cotton swatches may not be the best idea for quantitative measurements and decency—though the elastic bands can be very handy as I learned the hard way as a child with mischievous friends who liked to inflict wedgies.
Illuminating results from sparkler experiment
Posted by mark in Education, pop, Uncategorized on April 16, 2021
This video, concluding with the obligatory lighting up of multiple sparklers, lays out the results of another fun and educational experiment by Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) students at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) for their Applied Design of Experiments for the Chemical Industry class.
The testers: Anthony Best, Henry Brouwer, and Jordyn Tygesen, uncovered significant interactions of wind, water and lighting position on the burn time as illustrated by the Pareto chart of effects from Design-Expert software.
I expect these three experimenters will be enjoying extremely sparkly celebrations this summer!
Mentos volcano rocks Rapid City
Posted by mark in design of experiments, Education on April 12, 2021
It was my pleasure to oversee another outstanding collection of fun experiments by the Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) students at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) for this Spring semester’s Applied Design of Experiments for the Chemical Industry class presented by Stat-Ease. They continued on the excellent tradition established by the class of 2020 which I reported in my blog on “DOE It Yourself” hits the spot for distance-learning projects.
As promised, I am highlighting a few of the many A+ projects in StatsMadeEasy, particularly those with engaging videos. My first selection goes to Dakin Nolan, Erick Hoon and Jared Wilson for their “DOE Soda and Mentos Experiment”. They studied the “heterogenous nucleation of gases on a surface” caused by type of soda, its temperature and volume versus the quantity of Mentos. See the results in the video (“the moment you’ve all been waiting for”). Do not miss the grand finale (“The Masterpiece”) that shows what happens if you mix 15 Mentos in a 2-liter bottle of hot Diet Coke.
It’s hard to say how high the cola spouted in the blow out at the end, but it must have made a big sticky mess of the surrounding area. At similar conditions but at a more prudent maximum of 3 Mentos (the highest level actually tested in the DOE), Design-Expert predicts a peak of 310 inches—an impressive 25 feet of magma.
Further work will be needed to optimize the dosage of Mentos. Perhaps 15 of the sugary oblate spheroids may be overkill. There’s always room for improvement, as well as more fun, making volcanoes.
Applying multifactor testing to a wine-making simulator
The Pudding, a digital publication devoted to data-driven visualization of current culture, currently features a very interesting essay on Wine and Math, A Model Pairing. The author, Lars Verspohl, provides many eye-catching graphics of the analytics behind producing quality wines.
What got my attention was a simulator for making red Portuguese Vinho Verde. Verspohl sifted through a dataset of 1600 wines to develop a model that predicts quality based on 11 factors. You can slide these up and down to try making a fine wine—rated at 7 or more on a scale of 10.
Not being content with haphazard searching on so many variables, I set up a multifactor test. Using version 13 of Design-Expert® software (free trial here), I laid out a minimum-run (plus 2) screening design on the 8 factors ranked most important by Verspohl’s Random Forest analysis, bypassing the bottom 3 (pH, residual sugar and free sulfur dioxide). I then worked through the 18 combinations and recorded the quality results in percent.
As shown on its Pareto plot of effects, Design-Expert revealed that only 5 of the effects tested produced significant effects.
The numeric optimization tools led to the optimal red Vinho Verde flagged in this 3D plot at the highest alcohol and lowest volatile acid levels. Settings for the other attributes are indicated by the position of the slide bars, e.g.; sulphates at the high level*. The factors defaulted to the middle are ones that did not get picked for the model.
Now that I’ve solved this simulator, my next mission is to locate a bottle of red Vinho Verde for some one-glass-at-a-time testing.
*This result surprised me—not being a big fan of sulfurous compounds in wines. This skepticism is borne out by another take on the Vinho Verde wine here. The only way to resolve the conflicting results would be to do an actual experiment on the composition of a red wine, ideally a mixture design for optimal formulation.