(Image Caption: This Type Of Electrocorticography (ECoG) Grid, Which Is Implanted In Patients About To

Dolphins beat up octopuses before eating them, and the reason is kind of horrifying

Generally speaking, it’s best if your food doesn’t kill you. This isn’t usually a problem in the animal kingdom, as prey tends to be dead and limp by the time it hits the gullet. But not all creatures are harmless after death: consider the octopus.

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It’s easy:  Form a triangle, then a hexagon, then a bicycle wheel

This is the general mechanism on how a spider spins its web (talk about engineering, right?). When an insect gets caught in its web, the vibrations caused by the insect is felt by the spider which then rushes to engulf its prey.

Now here is the trippy part ; This is the effect of drugs on the pattern of the web.

Hope you are having a great week. Have a good one!

* Spider spinning a web (video) (if you find a better full video let us know)

** Spiders on drugs -  NASA article ; Video

“Brainprint” Biometric ID Hits 100% Accuracy

Psychologists and engineers at Binghamton University in New York say they’ve hit a milestone in the quest to use the unassailable inner workings of the mind as a form of biometric identification. They came up with an electroencephalograph system that proved 100 percent accurate at identifying individuals by the way their brains responded to a series of images. But EEG as a practical means of authentication is still far off.

Many earlier attempts had come close to 100 percent accuracy but couldn’t completely close the gap. “It’s a big deal going from 97 to 100 percent because we imagine the applications for this technology being for high-security situations,” says Sarah Laszlo, the assistant professor of psychology at Binghamton who led the research with electrical engineering professor Zhanpeng Jin.

Perhaps as important as perfect accuracy is that this new form of ID can do something fingerprints and retinal scans have a hard time achieving: It can be “canceled.”

Fingerprint authentication can be reset if the associated data is stolen, because that data can be stored as a mathematically transformed version of itself, points out Clarkson University biometrics expert Stephanie Schuckers. However, that trick doesn’t work if it’s the fingerprint (or the finger) itself that’s stolen. And the theft part, at least, is easier than ever. In 2014 hackers claimed to have cloned German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen’s fingerprints just by taking a high-­definition photo of her hands at a public event.

Several early attempts at EEG-based identification sought the equivalent of a fingerprint in the electrical activity of a brain at rest. But this new brain biometric, which its inventors call CEREBRE, dodges the cancelability problem because it’s based on the brain’s responses to a sequence of particular types of images. To keep that ID from being permanently hijacked, those images can be changed or re-sorted to essentially make a new biometric passkey, should the original one somehow be hacked.

CEREBRE, which Laszlo, Jin, and colleagues described in IEEE Transactions in Information Forensics and Security, involves presenting a person wearing an EEG system with images that fall into several cate­gories: foods people feel strongly about, celebrities who also evoke emotions, simple sine waves of different frequencies, and uncommon words. The words and images are usually black and white, but occasionally one is presented in color because that produces its own kind of response.

Each image causes a recognizable change in voltage at the scalp called an event-related potential, or ERP. The different categories of images involve somewhat different combinations of parts of your brain, and they were already known to produce slight differences in the shapes of ERPs in different people. Laszlo’s hypothesis was that using all of them—several more than any other system—would create enough different ERPs to accurately distinguish one person from another.

The EEG responses were fed to software called a classifier. After testing several schemes, including a variety of neural networks and other machine-learning tricks, the engineers found that what actually worked best was a system based on simple cross correlation.

In the experiments, each of the 50 test subjects saw a sequence of 500 images, each flashed for 1 second. “We collected 500, knowing it was overkill,” Laszlo says. Once the researchers crunched the data they found that just 27 images would have been enough to hit the 100 percent mark.

The experiments were done with a high-quality research-grade EEG, which used 30 electrodes attached to the skull with conductive goop. However, the data showed that the system needs only three electrodes for 100 percent identification, and Laszlo says her group is working on simplifying the setup. They’re testing consumer EEG gear from Emotiv and NeuroSky, and they’ve even tried to replicate the work with electrodes embedded in a Google Glass, though the results weren’t spectacular, she says.

For EEG to really be taken seriously as a biometric ID, brain interfaces will need to be pretty commonplace, says Schuckers. That might yet happen. “As we go more and more into wearables as a standard part of our lives, [EEGs] might be more suitable,” she says.

But like any security system, even an EEG biometric will attract hackers. How can you hack something that depends on your thought patterns? One way, explains Laszlo, is to train a hacker’s brain to mimic the right responses. That would involve flashing light into a hacker’s eye at precise times while the person is observing the images. These flashes are known to alter the shape of the ERP.

Once Upon a Time t

Once upon the time t(0) there was a young buck named Butterbean who wanted nothing more than to know his ontological value.  Being familiar with the concepts of quantum mechanics he was sadly aware that this was theoretically impossible, but remained unsatisfied with the notion.

In an undying effort to discover the nature of his own existence he set out on a journey to seek the answer from all those most wise and perceiving.

Clearly the first stop was at the front door of Glad the hippopotamus.    

Glad was of the notion that all things are ultimately mundane and that it is simply a matter of time and “progress” before esoteric conundrums become  simple everyday knowledge.  Surely this most assured creature could derive an unknown variable to discover the true nature of Butterbean himself. They were both of the mind at this time t(realist) that all the probabilistic nonsense was clearly just a cop out for those ninnies who fancied themselves finished with discovering the universe.

Alas after decades, or maybe days (no one can be sure given that time itself is a construct  commonly defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom, and who can really say cesium 133 even exists… really), Glad was forced to admit that he could not tell Butterbean of his ontological state prior to Butterbean’s arrival on his doorstep, nor could he possibly without any reference to his own experience as a literalist hippo,  and was forced to admit that this coveted obscure variable was beyond his abilities of perception.

With a sense of hopelessness Butterbean sought out the comfort and guidance of Ol’ Trusty, the Wire Stripper.  They adventured together for t(hedonist) to t(fundamentalist) without ever committing to any defined notion as after all, how can you find the answer to a paradox, oxymoron much?  

However comfort in ignorance becomes unsettling after you’ve had your fun and Butterbean became restless.  There was one more known avenue he had not yet travelled…

With a renewed sense of wonder and determination Butterbean approached the Oak, which shook its branches excitedly upon Butterbean’s arrival to see such a valiant seeker of answers.  “Oak, what can you tell me about my ontological value?” asked Butterbean humbly.  The Oak remained silent, but a slight breeze rustled loose a few leaves from its massive head which fluttered to the ground and landed lightly at Butterbean’s feet, Butterbean faltered and then turned and retreated thoughtfully sensing that the conversation was over. 

Upon further consideration over Δt(orthodox) Butterbean understood Oak’s lesson— the leaves could change position through many methods all resulting in different outcomes, however before any leaf falls, it has not fallen.  Butterbean had discovered that no matter who or what observes him, there would be an outcome, but it could not be these interactions which defined the whole of himself, surely he must be something inherently like the leaves of Oak’s mane.  

One day, a little time later at approximately t(decision), Butterbean decided to venture forth in search of a method of measurement that excluded observation.  Knowing that the existence of alligators had long been debated among those with a higher understanding of the nature of things, he knew he should seek within the mind of that which may or may not exist; namely an alligator (though a unicorn or manticore could have sufficed, they are not quite as easy to find nowadays).

Unfortunately all alligators are actually just dead trees and Butterbean had to once again rethink his strategy. 

It occurred to Butterbean, after his most recent experiences, that perhaps his disbelief in alligators had caused their value to be null, distracted in hoping that his mind was not quite that powerful Butterbean mistakenly stomped on a daisy which let out a loud squeal, “watch out dummy!”  “OH!” replied Butterbean, “Sorry I didn’t see you there, though come to think of it I’m surprised you even exist as I hadn’t yet observed you my friend.”   The daisy straightened herself and smoothing out her petals scoffed and said jeeringly, “you think that you are the only one who exists, eh?”  “Well,” began Butterbean thoughtfully, “no, but I don’t understand how anything or anyone has any sort of defined nature without something else purposefully interacting with it, after all, how do you know that you exist?” “Oh for goodness sake,” exclaimed young Daisy, “Of course you’ll remain limited as long as you keep collapsing your wave function with all that introspection!”  And she turned her face to the sun clearly dismissing Butterbean and all his angsty questions.  

Butterbean, with all known theories exhausted, was still unsatisfied and longed to know the mystery of his own nature of being and the recent dismissal of the daisy weighed heavy on his soul.  “Why can she be so satisfied just being,” he wondered, “when I spend all of my time dedicated to the mystery and nature of life but still feel so empty and unfulfilled?”  And suddenly it struck him! It had been so obvious all along and basically verbatim the retorts he had only just received from the annoyed flower he had trod on, Butterbean ceased to observe himself and existed infinitely in all possible states of being.

Laplace transform table. Source. (I’m obsessed. <3 And figured y’all would like this one, too!)

Chinese map of the eastern hemisphere, circa 1799.

The day my sister, Jessica, discovered Comic Sans, her entire world changed. She’s dyslexic and struggled through school until she was finally diagnosed in her early twenties, enabling her to build up a personal set of tools for navigating the written world. “For me, being able to use Comic Sans is similar to a mobility aid, or a visual aid, or a hearing aid,” she tells me while we’re both visiting our family in Maryland. “I have other ways of writing and reading, but they’re not like they are for someone who’s not dyslexic.” The irregular shapes of the letters in Comic Sans allow her to focus on the individual parts of words. While many fonts use repeated shapes to create different letters, such as a “p” rotated to made a “q,” Comic Sans uses few repeated shapes, creating distinct letters (although it does have a mirrored “b” and “d”). Comic Sans is one of a few typefaces recommended by influential organizations like the British Dyslexia Association and the Dyslexia Association of Ireland. Using Comic Sans has made it possible for Jessica to complete a rigorous program in marine zoology at Bangor University in Wales. […] I asked Jessica to tell me what she’s up against. She’s been told that Comic Sans is “unprofessional. That it’s juvenile. That it’s stupid. That it basically shouldn’t be used for anything at all, unless it is a comic.” There are fonts that have been specifically created for people with dyslexia, all of which lack the clean minimalism or elegant balance and perfect kerning favored by typography snobs. But they are crucial disability aids. Some are free, such as Lexie Readable (which calls itself “Comic Sans for grown-ups”), Open-Dyslexic, and Dyslexie. Others are for purchase or are publisher-owned and unavailable to the general public. But for Jessica, Comic Sans is still the best. “I don’t use Open Dyslexic because it’s not as easy for me to read,” Jessica says. “It’s not my font. I was dyslexic before Open Dyslexic happened. My mind has been getting used to Comic Sans.” Not everyone with dyslexia uses Comic Sans to help them read and write. “Other people with dyslexia find that having colored paper makes it easier,” Jessica says. “Or some people find Arial easier.” Comic Sans and Arial are readily available because they are included by default in many operating systems and word-processing programs, and they are web-safe fonts.

Hating Comic Sans is Ableist by Lauren Hudgins on The Establishment.  (via allthingslinguistic)

On this day, 14th February 1779,  Captain James Cook was killed in Hawaii.

James Cook completed three major voyages of discovery. On his first, departing in 1768, he commanded the ‘Endeavour’ on an expedition to chart the transit of Venus. He returned to England in 1771, having also circumnavigated the globe, including exploring and charting New Zealand and Australia’s eastern coast. 

On his second journey (1772-1775), he commanded the 'Resolution’ and the 'Adventure’ on an expedition to the South Pacific, disproving the rumour of a great southern continent, exploring the Antarctic Ocean, New Hebrides and New Caledonia.

Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Again, Cook commanded the Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery. Leaving England in 1776, Cook first sailed south to Tahiti to return Omai, a Tahitian man, to his home. Omai had been taken on Cook’s second voyage and had been an object of curiosity in London. It was on this, Cook’s final voyage, that he discovered the Hawaiian Islands in January 1778. This major discovery would lead to his death – Cook was killed on a return visit to Hawaii at Kealakekua Bay, on 14 February 1779.  

Kealakekua Bay was considered the sacred harbour of Lono, the fertility god of the Hawaiians. Cook and his compatriots were welcomed as gods but after one of the crewmen died, exposing the Europeans as mere mortals, relations became strained. On February 4, 1779, the British ships sailed from Kealakekua Bay, but rough seas damaged the foremast of the Resolution, and after only a week at sea the expedition was forced to return to Hawaii.

The Hawaiians greeted Cook and his men by hurling rocks; they then stole a small cutter vessel from the Discovery. Negotiations with King Kalaniopuu for the return of the cutter collapsed after a lesser Hawaiian chief was shot to death and a mob of Hawaiians descended on Cook’s party. The captain and his men fired on the angry Hawaiians, but they were soon overwhelmed, and only a few managed to escape to the safety of the Resolution. Captain Cook himself was killed by the mob. A few days later, the Englishmen retaliated by firing their cannons and muskets at the shore, killing some 30 Hawaiians. The Resolution and Discovery eventually returned to England.

The State Library of New South Wales holds significant original sources relating to James Cook, these paintings from the collection depict the death of Captain Cook.

Carved ditty box shaped like a coffin on silver stand, containing a rough watercolour sketch of the death of Cook, including a lock of Cook’s hair, ca. 1779 / carved by sailors on Cook’s last ship HMS Resolution. State Library of NSW.

Since 2009, Ada Lovelace Day has aimed “to raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths by encouraging people around the world to talk about the women whose work they admire.”  The day’s namesake, Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), was the daughter of Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke.  Ada, in possession of a keen intellect and deep passion for machinery, was educated in mathematics at the insistence of her mother. Later in life, Ada studied the workings of the Analytical Engine developed by mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage. In her notes on the engine, Ada described an algorithm for computing numbers – an algorithm which would distinguish Ada as one of the world’s “first computer programmers.”  

In honor of Ada Lovelace Day, we present some images from the CHF Archives of women working in various chemistry labs. Click on each photo for additional information.

And for more women in science content, consider taking a look at the films in The Catalyst Series: Women in Chemistry by the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

The Okinawan Language

Anybody who has studied Japanese and Linguistics will know that Japanese is a part of the Japonic language family. For many years it was thought that Japanese was a language isolate, unrelated to any other language (Although there is some debate as to whether or not Japanese and Korean are related). Today, most linguists are in agreement that Japanese is not an isolate. The Japonic languages are split into two groups: Japanese (日本語) and its dialects, which range from standard Eastern Japanese (東日本方言) to the various dialects found on Kyūshū (九州日本方言), which are, different, to say the least. The Ryukyuan Languages (琉球語派). Which are further subdivided into Northern and Southern Ryukyuan languages. Okinawan is classified as a Northern Ryukyuan Languages. There are a total of 6 Ryukyuan languages, each with its own dialects. The Ryukyuan languages exist on a continuum, somebody who speaks Okinawan will have a more difficult time understanding the Yonaguni Language, which is spoken on Japan’s southernmost populated island. Japanese and Okinawan (I am using the Naha dialect of Okinawan because it was the standard language of the Ryukyu Kingdom), are not intelligible. Calling Okinawan a dialect of Japanese is akin to calling Dutch a dialect of English. It is demonstrably false. Furthermore, there is an actual Okinawan dialect of Japanese, which borrows elements from the Okinawan language and infuses it with Japanese. So, where did the Ryukyuan languages come from? This is a question that goes hand in hand with theories about where Ryukyuan people come from. George Kerr, author of Okinawan: The History of an Island People (An old book, but necessary read if you’re interested in Okinawa), theorised that Ryukyuans and Japanese split from the same population, with one group going east to Japan from Korea, whilst the other traveled south to the Ryukyu Islands. “In the language of the Okinawan country people today the north is referred to as nishi, which Iha Fuyu (An Okinawn scholar) derives from inishi (’the past’ or ‘behind’), whereas the Japanese speak of the west as nishi. Iha suggests that in both instances there is preserved an immemorial sense of the direction from which migration took place into the sea islands.” (For those curious, the Okinawan word for ‘west’ is いり [iri]). But, it must be stated that there are multiple theories as to where Ryukyuan and Japanese people came from, some say South-East Asia, some say North Asia, via Korea, some say that it is a mixture of the two. However, this post is solely about language, and whilst the relation between nishi in both languages is intriguing, it is hardly conclusive. With that said, the notion that Proto-Japonic was spoken by migrants from southern Korea is somewhat supported by a number of toponyms that may be of Gaya origin (Or of earlier, unattested origins). However, it also must be said, that such links were used to justify Japanese imperialism in Korea. Yeah, when it comes to Japan and Korea, and their origins, it’s a minefield. What we do know is that a Proto-Japonic language was spoken around Kyūshū, and that it gradually spread throughout Japan and the Ryukyu Islands. The question of when this happened is debatable. Some scholars say between the 2nd and 6th century, others say between the 8th and 9th centuries. The crucial issue here, is the period in which proto-Ryukyuan separated from mainland Japanese. “The crucial issue here is that the period during which the proto-Ryukyuan separated(in terms of historical linguistics) from other Japonic languages do not necessarily coincide with the period during which the proto-Ryukyuan speakers actually settled on the Ryūkyū Islands.That is, it is possible that the proto-Ryukyuan was spoken on south Kyūshū for some time and the proto-Ryukyuan speakers then moved southward to arrive eventually in the Ryūkyū Islands.” This is a theory supported by Iha Fuyu who claimed that the first settlers on Amami were fishermen from Kyūshū. This opens up two possibilities, the first is that ‘Proto-Ryukyuan’ split from ‘Proto-Japonic’, the other is that it split from ‘Old-Japanese’. As we’ll see further, Okinawan actually shares many features with Old Japanese, although these features may have existed before Old-Japanese was spoken. So, what does Okinawan look like? Well, to speakers of Japanese it is recognisable in a few ways. The sentence structure is essentially the same, with a focus on particles, pitch accent, and a subject-object-verb word order. Like Old Japanese, there is a distinction between the terminal form ( 終止形 ) and the attributive form ( 連体形 ). Okinawan also maintains the nominative function of nu ぬ (Japanese: no の). It also retains the sounds ‘wi’ ‘we’ and ‘wo’, which don’t exist in Japanese anymore. Other sounds that don’t exist in Japanese include ‘fa’ ‘fe’ ‘fi’ ‘tu’ and ‘ti’. Some very basic words include: はいさい (Hello, still used in Okinawan Japanese) にふぇーでーびる (Thank you) うちなー (Okinawa) 沖縄口 (Uchinaa-guchi is the word for Okinawan) めんそーれー (Welcome) やまとぅ (Japan, a cognate of やまと, the poetic name for ‘Japan’) Lots of Okinawan can be translated into Japanese word for word. For example, a simple sentence, “Let’s go by bus” バスで行こう (I know, I’m being a little informal haha!) バスっし行ちゃびら (Basu sshi ichabira). As you can see, both sentences are structured the same way. Both have the same loanword for ‘bus’, and both have a particle used to indicate the means by which something is achieved, ‘で’ in Japanese, is ‘っし’ in Okinawan. Another example sentence, “My Japanese isn’t as good as his” 彼より日本語が上手ではない (Kare yori nihon-go ga jouzu dewanai). 彼やか大和口ぬ上手やあらん (Ari yaka yamatu-guchi nu jooji yaaran). Again, they are structured the same way (One important thing to remember about Okinawan romanisation is that long vowels are represented with ‘oo’ ‘aa’ etc. ‘oo’ is pronounced the same as ‘ou’). Of course, this doesn’t work all of the time, if you want to say, “I wrote the letter in Okinawan” 沖縄語で手紙を書いた (Okinawa-go de tegami wo kaita). 沖縄口さーに手紙書ちゃん (Uchinaa-guchi saani tigami kachan). For one, さーに is an alternate version of っし, but, that isn’t the only thing. Okinawan doesn’t have a direct object particle (を in Japanese). In older literary works it was ゆ, but it no longer used in casual speech. Introducing yourself in Okinawan is interesting for a few reasons as well. Let’s say you were introducing yourself to a group. In Japanese you’d say みんなさこんにちは私はフィリクスです (Minna-san konnichiwa watashi ha Felixdesu) ぐすよー我んねーフィリクスでぃいちょいびーん (Gusuyoo wan’nee Felix di ichoibiin). Okinawan has a single word for saying ‘hello’ to a group. It also showcases the topic marker for names and other proper nouns. In Japanese there is only 1, は but Okinawan has 5! や, あー, えー, おー, のー! So, how do you know which to use? Well, there is a rule, typically the particle fuses with short vowels, a → aa, i → ee, u → oo, e → ee, o → oo, n → noo. Of course, the Okinawan pronoun 我ん, is a terrible example, because it is irregular, becoming 我んねー instead of  我んのー or 我んや. Yes. Like Japanese, there are numerous irregularities to pull your hair out over! I hope that this has been interesting for those who have bothered to go through the entire thing. It is important to discuss these languages because most Ryukyuan languages are either ‘definitely’ or ‘critically’ endangered. Mostly due to Japanese assimilation policies from the Meiji period onward, and World War 2. The people of Okinawa are a separate ethnic group, with their own culture, history, poems, songs, dances and languages. It would be a shame to lose something that helps to define a group of people like language does. I may or may not look in the Kyūshū dialects of Japanese next time. I’unno, I just find them interesting.