Let your geekiness show in the valentines you send! Express your love for your sweetie plus your love for your favorite video game, online community, scientific discipline, movie, or TV show. There are lots to select from, but you won’t find them in your local greeting card store -no, these out-of-the ordinary valentines are found on the internet. Shown here are some valentines based on the TV series Breaking Bad, by Beth at Butt Horn. See the rest of the collection at mental_floss. Link

While the group of friends at Lake Geneva imagined the ghoulish possibilities of galvanism, one young woman was so horrified by the idea of reanimating corpses that she subsequently had a dream in which she saw “the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together.” This dream inspired her to write a horror story in which a “mad scientist” creates a monster out of dead body parts, a monster that wreaks havoc and kills innocents. The author is Mary Shelley. The story, of course, is Frankenstein. Considered by many to be the first true work of science fiction, it was certainly the world’s first cautionary tale about the perils of science messing around with life.

There are other examples in a post at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Author Laura H. Kahn wants to encourage scientists to write more fiction, so that stories about science could be more informative, and maybe a little less horrifying. Link -Thanks, Janice!

Movies and television shows always show scientists as being stuffy older folks shrouded in white lab coats, but real scientists look much more like the rest of us than they would have you think. That’s why This Is What A Scientist is so great -it shows real scientists living their everyday lives, looking like regular people. What a great way to counter the stereotypes.

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Antdude, if you’ve been waiting for an article to be specifically dedicated to only you, here you go. Of course, even those of you who aren’t insect/human hybrids will be sure to enjoy io9′s fascinating article featuring 10 frightening facts about ants. For example, did you know:

Ants have already survived a mass extinction event
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event is thought to have occurred approximately 65 million years ago following an absolutely massive impact event. Widely regarded as the downfall of the dinosaurs (and, incidentally, the rise of mammals), the years following the KT-extinction event are actually believed to have been a time of incredibly rapid speciation and worldwide expansion for ants, marking what researchers Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson call “a rise to ecological dominance.”

Really, there’s a good chance ants will outlive humans as well.

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In the experiment, a group of men and women (on the younger side, with an average age of 21) were given the opportunity to donate money to a fund, knowing they would get nothing in return other than the pride of their selflessness. Whether they were watched or not, women donated at the same rate. But men, when watched by women, donated at higher rates. They didn’t donate at higher rates when men watched.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sure flabbergasted by this one. Who would have guessed?

Link Via The Jane Dough

Studies show over 80% of all sexually active adults will contract an STD at some point, although most won’t notice. That’s because 80% of all people who contract one of the 25 varieties of STDs don’t show any symptoms and most don’t even realize they have one. In fact, the American Social Health Association estimates that 80% of sexually active people contract the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) at one point in their life. While those statistics were taken before the HPV vaccine was released, the vaccine only prevents two of the most dangerous strains of the disease, meaning even those vaccinated can still catch one of the many other strains.

While the numbers sound scary, the upside is that most people who contract an STD won’t suffer any negative effects as a result.

That’s just one of a list of ten thing you probably didn’t know that you can learn about at Oddee. Be prepared that this list contains adults-only subject matter, but the images are SFW. Link

Let’s face it, most holidays already marked on your calendar are pretty boring -Valentine’s Day, Easter, Father’s Day…yawn. If you really want to geek up your wall calendar and ensure you celebrate holidays more appropriate to your specific interests, don’t miss io9′s round up of great science holiday including Pi approximation day (July 22) and Hagfish Day (October 17). Of course, since they’re all science related, certain other geek holidays are left out -after all, you can’t miss out on Towel Day.

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While your teachers may have spread lies about planetary plates shifting and causing the continents to separate, Dan Meth is brave enough to share the truth with us. Pangaea occurred when the continents were cuddling with one another, but when tensions started to rise and the honeymoon phase ended, the happy group had no choice but to split up.

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If you get stung by a jelly fish, don’t ask your friend to pee on you. Similarly, reading in the dark won’t make you go blind. For explanations and more interesting body myths, head over to Life Hacker.

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This one’s for all you science studs, because we all know that the sexiest organ in the human body is the brain.

And, while keeping your eyes glued to a textbook doesn’t help your body get into shape, it will work wonders for your self esteem, and someday your pocketbook, if you’re lucky!

So, put on your space themed tie and some blue jeans and show the world how sexy science can be.

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Stephen Gaeta (featured previously) is a doctor and an artist. He uses visual humor to illustrate medicine and typography to create art about science. This graphic called Transgenic is composed of the text from the DNA of chromosome 1 of the human gene. It’s a very long code! See the full size version at his site. Link

While some people criticize the efforts put into these prosthetics, particularly in species that are not under threat of extinction, it is important to realize that these developments could help save a critical breeding member of an endangered species one day. Additionally, many of these techniques are brand new and by testing them on animals, researchers are developing useful insights to see if they may one day work on humans. If you end up losing a body part and get a bionic replacement twenty years from now, you might just have a cat or dog to thank for your top-of-the-line prosthetic.

Oscar the Cat

(Video Link)

Oscar lost his two rear legs in an accident with a combine harvester. After losing so much blood, his owners were told to expect the worst, but even after he survived the ordeal, their vet warned that cats rarely live happy lives with only two legs. Fortunately, he referred Oscars owners, Kate Allen and Mike Nolan to a veterinary surgeon who specializes in state-of-the-art animal medicine.

After looking at Oscar’s situation, Dr. Noel Fitzpatrick agreed to take on the new patient, surgically fitting him with implants that can eventually be attached to prosthetic paws. The surgery makes Oscar a notable kitty as he is the first cat to ever have prosthetic paws.

While the process was a success, Oscar’s paws haven’t yet been perfected for outdoor use. He has been made to be a house cat for the rest of his life, but really…that’s not all that bad now is it, especially when you consider how he was injured in the first place.

Storm the Dog

The first animal to receive such treatment though was Storm, a Belgian Sheperd, who lost his paw after it became infected with a tumor. The same vet that would later provide Oscar with his bionic paws, Noel Fitzpatrick, was the first to offer this service to any animal and Storm was the perfect candidate. Fitzpatrick says that he hopes his developments can eventually be used to help soldiers returning from Iraq and victims of the July 7^th bombings in London.

Naki’o the Dog

(Video Link)

Earlier this year, Naki’o became the first dog in the world to be fitted with a full set of bionic paws from Orthopets, a leader in the pet prosthetics industry. Far from just helping him walk easier, the paws are so well attached that he can now run and swim just as he did before the accident. Naki’o lost his paws due to severe frostbite after his previous owners abandoned him to fend for himself throughout the freezing winter in Nebraska. Despite the fact that the poor pup had to crawl on his stomach to move, he still found a loving adoptive family who worked tirelessly to raise the money to get Naki’o the prosthetics he desperately needed. Their efforts paid off as Naki’o is now thrilled to have his bionic paws and is eager to run, jump and fetch with his new family.

Boonie the Goat

(Video Link)

Boonie was a happy little goat, until he got tangled in a rope and broke his leg trying to escape back in 2008. Unfortunately, the break was so bad that his leg had to be amputated. Fortunately, Boonie’s owner cared enough about her little goat to get in touch with Orthopets, the same company that would later help Naki’o. He now happily frolics and forages with his own specially-designed leg.

Coal the Dog

Coal was eight years old in 2008, when his left paw had to be amputated due to cancer. Vets warned that he might have to be put down because his other legs were too weak to carry him. But his loving owner, Reg Walker, refused to accept this fate and instead shelled out more than $15,000 to get Coal his own bionic leg that was completely compatible with Coal’s tissue. The titanium alloy used is specially designed to mimic the dog’s skin so the natural skin and bone will seal with the metal implant without being rejected by the body. Veterinarians involved with the process are hopeful this new technique can be adapted to help bombing victims recover from their traumatic injuries much more quickly and easily.

Fuji the Dolphin

(Video Link)

Fuji was a popular inhabitant at the Okinawa aquarium where she lived…that is, until an unknown disease started eating away at her tail fin. To save her life, veterinarians had to amputate almost all of her tail. Unfortunately, for a dolphin, that is practically a death sentence in itself as it leaves them unable to swim, jump or dive in the water.

Fortunately, the Bridgestone tire company heard about poor Fuji and stepped in with a team of researchers dedicated to helping the little dolphin get back to her old hijinks. They tried design after design, carefully perfecting a prosthetic tail that Fuji would feel comfortable with that would also be strong enough to support her swimming. Eventually, they got it right and now Fuji is back in the limelight where she is most happy, swimming and jumping with a new lease on life.

Winter the Dolphin

Image via crimfants [Flickr]

While Fuji was the first dolphin to receive a prosthetic tail, Winter is certainly the most famous. In fact, after Winter received her prosthetic, a documentary was soon made about her, titled Winter, the Dolphin That Could, and not long after that, Warner Bros made a fictionalized version of the story starring Morgan Freeman, Dolphin Tale.

Just in case you haven’t seen either of the movies though, it all started when the three-month-old dolphin got tangled up in a crab trap line and ended up losing her tail and two vertebrae in the process. Like Fuji, she was left unable to swim. Fortunately, Hanger Orthopedic Group stepped forward to help provide her with a prosthetic. Eventually Winter learned to swim again and become a star attraction at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

Yu Chan the Sea Turtle

Images via Kawamura Gishi

Of course, dolphins aren’t the only critters that rely on their fins to swim. When Yu Chan was discovered without two front flippers, presumably due to a shark attack, the Sea Turtle Association of Japan stepped in to help her out with two prosthetic flippers. Many designs were tested, with the Association hoping to eventually develop fins that could be bionically attached to the animal, as the prosthetics will have to be very sturdy and attached quite tightly if they are to be expected to last throughout the rest of Yu Chan’s life, which could go on another 50 years.

Not only is the rescue a big deal for Yu Chan, but also for sea turtle enthusiasts throughout the world, as only one other sea turtle was ever fitted with a false flipper, but the attempt failed after her stump proved too small to hold the prosthetic.

Beauty the Eagle

Beauty lost her top beak due to a reckless poacher. She had difficulty preening her feathers, drinking and eating had become practically impossible for her until she was taken to a recovery center in Anchorage.

It took a full three years for researchers to develop a working artificial beak that would help her grasp food. Even so, the beak pictured isn’t even a permanent solution. This first model was created to help engineers develop more precise measurements for her second prosthetic. While the final beak will fit better and be designed with tougher materials, there are no plans to release Beauty back into the wild, as the team fears she has spent far too much time relying on humans to survive on her own again.

Motala the Elephant

Motala made headlines in 1999 when the Thai elephant lost her foot after stepping on a landmine. While vets were able to save most of her leg, it still was left shorter than the others. It took researchers six years to develop a prosthetic that would work for the pachyderm. She then had to use a temporary prosthetic made with wood shaving for another eight months until she became strong enough to be fitted with the permanent one made with fiberglass and silicone. That’s because poor Motala became so used to not using that leg that she had to become reaccustomed to walking with it.

Of course, there are plenty more animal prosthetic stories out there. In fact, while this article focuses on the newest and most high-tech versions, I’m sure many of you know an animal that has been fitted with a prosthetic of one kind or another. If you have any of your own stories, feel free to share them in the comments.

Science is a field based largely on theory and experimentation, which is why you have to be pretty darn certain you are right if you’re willing to test your ideas on yourself. For example, in the picture above:

In 1929 in the basement of the Eberswaled Hospital in Germany, surgical resident Werner Forssmann inserted a ureteral catheter tube into his elbow, feeding it through a vein up to his heart. He used a mirror as his assistant, since he had restrained his nurse to the operating table. He then took an x-ray of his chest (at left) to determine the catheter had indeed made it to the right atrium.

Learn about more dedicated, and brave, scientists over at Mental Floss.

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Sascha Mehlhase built a model of the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider out of LEGO bricks! It contains around 9,500 bricks and took 33 hours to assemble, in addition to 48 total hours of work just designing it. Read more about and see more pictures at his site. Link -via reddit

(Video Link)

Ok, maybe it’s not able to solve the cube, but I’m just impressed that it is willing to try. I wonder if octopus and mantis shrimp would have fun playing with Rubik’s cubes together.

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From spiders who can live underwater for a whole day at a time to underwater rivers with their own wave systems, it’s simply amazing what can happen below the surface.

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If you like your art metaphysical, trippy and full of science fiction style then you’ll love this gallery of retro cover art from Yugoslavian science mag Galaksija. Flickr user Yugodrom has a huge gallery for you to peruse at the link below. They’ll take your mind on a wild ride, no controlled substances required.

Link –via PopSci

Does your tree need a little more  intelligence? If so, you might benefit from one (or all) of these great ornaments featuring some of the most famous women from science history.

Link Via The Mary Sue

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Six famous thought experiments explained humorously in a minute each, by David Mitchell of the BBC’s That Mitchell and Webb Look. Produced by The Open University. -via The Daily What

One of the occupational hazards of eating pasta is the way it slings sauce on everything around you—shirts, jacket … dates. Physicists creatively named this the spaghetti effect, the tendency of long flexible strands (like spaghetti) to whip side to side when pulled into a container (like your mouth). It’s a mild annoyance at dinner but a real danger in industrial settings where ropes or chains are rapidly pulled to and fro—or at home, when your metal tape measure goes feral. Fortunately, you can tame the noodle. —Judy Dutton

Instructions for better spaghetti-slurping follow. Link

You know how when you cut a worm in half you’ll get two worms and how mice love cheese? If you said yes, then actually you don’t know much about these creatures. Cracked recently took a look at common animal myths that are actually totally bogus. How many of these did you still believe before you read the article?

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Link Via BoingBoing

If you’ve ever wished your makeup could better incorporate scientific principles, then you might want to check out Sephora’s newest nail polish, one that creates cool 3D effects once you put a magnet over it while it is drying. I’m not big on nail polish, but I’d love to play with this formula. How about you other geek ladies?

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In 2007, science writer Carl Zimmer wondered how common science tattoos were. He said this on his blog, and the response was massive and ongoing. That grew into a completely new blog, and Zimmer became known as the guy who collected science tattoos. Now he has a book of science tattoos called Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed. The New York Times has a slide show featuring some awesome examples from the book. The tattoo shown belongs to a Princeton graduate student in molecular biology. Link -via The Loom

(Image credit: Science Ink by Carl Zimmer/Sterling Publishing)

What the study found is that the teenagers who were playing games eat, on average, 163 calories more than the teenagers who were doing something else. On top of that, the gamers didn’t actually burn any more calories than the control group, so the increased calorie intake wasn’t replaced by the energy spent on all that thumb movement or anything. There were also no biological indicators of stress in these gamers, so that couldn’t explain it either.

What do you guys think the reason for the increased caloric intake was? Do you tend to eat more while gaming?

Link Via Geekosystem

The International Space Station (ISS) occasionally has to boost itself into a higher altitude to counteract the effects of microgravity drag. Recently, the ISS boosted itself about two miles up, and video cameras caught what happened inside to Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov. The physics of the process are explained at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link -Thanks, Phil!

Pettenkofer was a late 19th century medical researcher and public health advocate who developed the very first large-scale pure-water system in Munich, Germany. And even though that’s probably very impressive, from now until the day you die, if you remember anything about Pettenkofer, it will be this: Max Josef von Pettenkofer drank a steaming cup of cholera bacteria that he cultured from a patient’s diarrhea bombs.

Yeah, he got sick. But he didn’t get sick enough to die, and Pettenkofer considered that proof of his theory that the cholera bacterium needed a victim who practiced poor sanitation. Of course, one could argue that without poor sanitation, the bacterium wouldn’t be spread, outside of scientists who ingested it on purpose. Anyway, read about Pettenkofer and five other scientists at Cracked. Link

It's a time-honored practice for politicians and educators to wring their hands over how American students have fallen behind in science and technology. Many have pointed out how large class sizes, lackluster teachers, and non-challenging curriculum in elementary and high schools are shortchanging our students and (gasp!) the country's future global competitiveness.

But who's really at fault here? Could the problem actually be on the shoulders of the vaunted American colleges and universities?

Christopher Drew wrote an intriguing article for The New York Times that examine how more and more students are turned off by science at the college level:

... it turns out, middle and high school students are having most of the fun, building their erector sets and dropping eggs into water to test the first law of motion. The excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg, an emeritus engineering professor, calls “the math-science death march.” Freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students. And then many wash out.

Studies have found that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree. That increases to as much as 60 percent when pre-medical students, who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation, are included, according to new data from the University of California at Los Angeles. That is twice the combined attrition rate of all other majors.

It's all a matter of the lack of preparation from high school, you say? Actually those who are better students are more likely to drop out of science:

“You’d like to think that since these institutions are getting the best students, the students who go there would have the best chances to succeed,” he says. “But if you take two students who have the same high school grade-point average and SAT scores, and you put one in a highly selective school like Berkeley and the other in a school with lower average scores like Cal State, that Berkeley student is at least 13 percent less likely than the one at Cal State to finish a [Science, Technology, Engineering and Math] degree.”

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Slowly snacking on Halloween candy every few hours, day after day, keeps your teeth bathed in enamel-corroding acid, the byproduct of bacteria feeding on sugar and other carbohydrates in your mouth. This leads to dental caries, or cavities.

So I guess even if you’re a candy stealer, it’s still better to steal it all in one night than stretch your thievery out.

Link Via The Mary Sue

Parasites are raising an army of zombie wasp queens to do their bidding, and it’s a good thing that these parasites aren’t more ambitious,  because they’d probably be well on their way to taking over the world by now!

The parasites cause common wasps to believe that they are queens, rejecting their normal caste and acting as self serving loners in wasp society:

Infected P. dominulus — better known as common European paper wasps — reject their genetically preordained roles, abandon their hives and embark on a long, macabre journey during which a few live for a time as queens, albeit murderous queens.

Read on about this fascinating example of parasitic mind control at the Wired link below, and pray these little critters don’t develop a taste for human blood!

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Hermit crab homelessness is reaching critical levels, leaving many of these fine clawed fellows without a shell of their own.

Now, thanks to 3d printers and our tireless search for new things to print out, there’s a solution: custom printed hermit crab shells! The printed shells will last longer, look cooler and are sure to stir up feelings of jealousy among other hermit crabs. If only we could print houses for homeless humans!

Link –via PopSci

These specimens in jars look pretty nasty, and the labels make them seem even worse. But believe it or not, they are all not only edible, but tasty! They contain unfamiliar fruits, or foods cut into odd shapes. Your Halloween guests will be delighted, if they can get over the willies and try them out. Get the recipes at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Link -via Buzzfeed

Sometimes it’s nice to be able to say a lot in only a few geeky words. If you need a little help getting your message across, try one of these designs by Illustrator Nicole Martinez, as seen over on Mental Floss.

Link Via Mental Floss

1  Fire is an event, not a thing. Heating wood or other fuel releases volatile vapors that can rapidly combust with oxygen in the air; the resulting incandescent bloom of gas further heats the fuel, releasing more vapors and perpetuating the cycle.

2  Most of the fuels we use derive their energy from trapped solar rays. In photosynthesis, sunlight and heat make chemical energy (in the form of wood or fossil fuel); fire uses chemical energy to produce light and heat.

3  So a bonfire is basically a tree running in reverse.

4  Assuming stable fuel, heat, and oxygen levels, a typical house fire will double in size every minute.

Read the rest at Discover. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science

A new study suggests that crows can recognize symbols that represent quantities of items. At Japan’s Utsunomiya University, crows were shown two containers. Only the container marked with five symbols contained the food. The researchers trained the crows to identify the food container 70% of the time.

There were only eight crows involved, so it’s not really conclusive, but it’s still interesting.

Link Via BoingBoing

Image Via malfet [Flickr]

While you won’t win any cooking contests with this recipe, you’ll certainly be able to impress your chemist friends at your next dinner party.

Link Via BoingBoing

Watch scientists, researchers, and assorted geeks get down! McGill University in Montreal gathered scientists, students, and volunteers to make this dance and lipdub video. Their sponsor, Medicom, is making a donation to the Goodman Cancer Research Centre for each view the video gets. -via Geeks Are Sexy

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Darryl Gwynne (of CANADA and AUSTRALIA and the USA) and David Rentz (of AUSTRALIA and the USA) for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of JAPAN, for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish) to awaken sleeping people in case of a fire or other emergency, and for applying this knowledge to invent the wasabi alarm.

LITERATURE PRIZE: John Perry of Stanford University, USA, for his Theory of Structured Procrastination, which says: To be a high achiever, always work on something important, using it as a way to avoid doing something that’s even more important.

PEACE PRIZE: Arturas Zuokas, the mayor of Vilnius, LITHUANIA, for demonstrating that the problem of illegally parked luxury cars can be solved by running them over with an armored tank.

Pictured are researchers Darryl Gwynne and David Rentz accepting their prize for biology. See the complete list of winners at Improbable Research. Link

Watch the entire ceremony on video. Link

America’s taste for bean soup appears to be unrelenting, and the World Wide Web offers more than a quarter of a million references to the subject. Multiple-bean soups are particularly in vogue. A methodical check on a leading search engine produced the following results which I record here for future historians of early twenty-first century food. Unexpectedly, this research also thrown up food for thought for mathematicians.

The methodology for researching multiple-bean soup was thus: The phrase “2 bean soup” was entered into the search engine, and the result recorded. Next, the phase “two bean soup” was entered. The search term producing the largest number was recorded as the most accurate number. This method was repeated until the number of beans in soup failed to produce relevant returns, thus, “Page 34, beans are the flavor of the month for soup…” was not considered a valid return for ‘34 bean soup.’

The chart (see Figure 2) plots the number of pages returned for each number of varieties of bean in soups for bean quantities ranging from 2 to 23. No soups were found using in excess of 23 varieties of bean.

Figure 2. A graph of the data. This depicts the number of World Wide Web pages the author found that pertain to each number of varieties of bean in soups for bean quantities ranging from 2 to 23.

Taking the pulse of bean soup is less straight forward than originally supposed. I had reckoned to encounter a normal bell curve with a peak around 16 beans, as the diversity of recipes for bean soup would at first sight seem to be a random event.

However, the presence of six distinct peaks at 3, 5 , 9, 13, 15 and 19 beans is nothing less than startling. (One must note that these numbers do not constitute a Fibonacci sequence, despite their approximate similarity to one.). Four of the six peak numbers of beans are prime, and the remaining two numbers are the square of the first number and the product of the first two.

Multiple bean soup looks to be anything but a random phenomenon.

Figure 1. Three kinds of beans (in cans). Photo: S. Drew.

Pushing the Packet

Further investigation of these relationships failed to locate a 25-bean soup (25 is 5²) or 45 bean soup (45 is 5 x 9). Similarly, I have not been able to determine why prime numbers 7, 11 and 17 fail to make popular soup. 11- and 17-bean soups have turned in a particularly alarming performance, with only 21 and 12 references, respectively. (One must note the coincidental numeric palindrome formed by the digits 2 and 1.)

Not being a cook, I cannot explain why the three major peaks occur around the numbers 3, 5 and 15. The mathematical relationship between the three numbers is startling (3 x 5 =15). Food historians may know of rules of proportion governing cuisine wherein years of experimentation have yielded rules for the use of ingredients in fixed mathematical proportions.

The distance between successive peaks (major and minor: 3, 5, 9, 13, 15 19) occurs in a regular pattern as well: 2, 4, 4, 2, 4. (2, of course, is the second prime number, and 4 is its square). It is interesting to note that continuing the pattern (19 + 4) takes us to the prime number 23, which is the largest number of beans found in soup during our investigation.

Some Possible Explanations

There are many possible explanation for these and other patterns that are evident in this referential-bean counting exercise. Several have to do with oddity and evenness.

The visual appeal of objects odd or prime in number is well known, but given the nature of soup, the number of beans used in its preparation is not readily noticeable — either consciously or unconsciously — the soup eater, or even to someone who simply observes or handles the finished soup.

Seasonal influences are not applicable, because most recipes use dried, rather than fresh, beans. Moving a step back in the process, the sale of beans is apt to be related to the marketing of the beans, in that prime and odd numbers are displayed at wholesale and retail outlets.

Alternatively, there is the so-called Beethoven phenomenon. Beethoven’s odd numbered symphonies are universally acknowledged to be superior to his even numbered ones. The appeal of odd numbers may stem from the fact that humans are, for the most part symmetrical, so there may be a special appeal for things with odd numbers, which would be considered exotic.

Another possibility arises at the chemical level, where the interaction of odd or prime numbers of ingredients may produce more desirable flavors than do even or non-prime numbers. (A quick glance through a book of cocktail recipes suggests there is something to this, but it requires considerable further investigation.)

Summary

The socio-cultural origins of bean soup may be found to play an important part in unravelling the mathematical aspects of recipes in general and of multi-bean soup in particular. (A doctoral thesis titled ‘Multi-bean soups in multi-cultural societies’ is certainly in the offing.)

Conclusions

While not significantly nearer knowing why the composition of multi-bean soups tends to cluster around certain numbers of beans, it has been shown that the number of beans in soups is not random and seems to have a purposiveness. That the clusters are around prime numbers (and their multiples) may be a statistical aberration arising from the fact that there is a disproportionately large number of prime numbers between 1 and 23 (there are 10 of them). However, the peaks are pronounced enough around the three major peaks (3, 5, 15) suggest that something else has a major influence over bean soup recipes. Further research is clearly called for.

TABLE 1

The Raw Data: Collected using www.google.com on 1 February 2002
Number of Beans in Soup | Number of References Returned by Search Engine
2 109
3 261
4 35
5 336
6 108
7 100
8 29
9 128
10 118
11 21
12 49
13 98
14 26
15 355
16 166
17 12
18 44
19 128
20 3
21 3
23 1

(As a bonus, here is a recipe from Flickr user Bill McKee.)

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The article above is republished with permission from the March-April 2003 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

You know what they say… if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. From the YouTube page:

In 1970 three American researchers, John E. Ware, Donald H. Naftulin and Frank A. Donnelly, designed an experiment to find out whether a brilliant delivery technique of a talk could so completely bamboozle a group of experts that they overlooked the fact that the content was nonsense. The result was the hilarious Dr Fox Lecture and the answer was: yes! The experts didn’t notice a thing.

An actor named Michael Fox was recruited to play the lecturer. Fox didn’t understand the material he was going to present, and he was concerned that someone in the audience would recognize him from his many TV appearances. But he needn’t have worried. Read the full story at Weird Experiments. Link -via Cynical-C

The question is, I hope, theoretical: if you were to leap out the sixth-story window of a building, how much bubble wrap would be required to ensure your survival? Rhett Allain tackled the problem with graphs, math, physics, and experiments. You should be aware that he used the British idea that the first floor is the one above the ground floor, which we Americans would call the second floor. The answer is ….at the Wired science blog Dot.Physics. Link

Chalk up another example of science finding inspiration in nature. The slipperiest substance in nature appears to be the lip of a deadly (to insects) pitcher plant. And a scientist has copied it.

The pitcher plant kills and eats animals. Some of its leaves are shaped like deep pitchers, and their rims, known as peristomes, are exceptionally slippery. Insects that explore the rim, looking for nectar, soon lose their footholds and fall in. They soon drown, and are broken down by the pitcher’s digestive fluids.  (There are some exceptions – see slideshow at the bottom).

Under the microscope, the secret to the peristome’s slipperiness is clear. It is lined with cells that overlap one another, creating a series of step-like ridges and troughs. The plant secretes nectar onto this uneven surface. The troughs collect the nectar, and the ridges hold it in place, preventing it from draining away. The result is an extremely smooth, stable and slippery surface that repels the oils on the feet of insects. Any bug that walks on this frictionless zone falls to its doom.

Tak-Sing Wong of Harvard University recreated this scheme using synthetic materials to build a surface that is slipperier than anything ever made. See the nuts-and-bolts of how he did it at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Link -via reddit

Just because Talk Like A Pirate Day is over doesn’t mean that it’s too late to enjoy pirate stuff like Etsy seller YellowBugBoutique’s periodic elements pillow that happens to spell out “pirate.” It’s just perfect for all of you science-lovers out there with a penchant for swashbuckling.

Link Via Craftzine

In Germany, researchers have created artificial blood vessels by putting a mix of synthetic polymers and biomolecules, so that the vessels aren’t rejected, into the 3d printer ink reservoirs, and the results are a finely detailed set of transplant worthy capillaries precisely detailed in every way.

Now that they have succeeded in creating blood vessels, researchers are looking at ways in which to print out internal organs and bones. I wonder how much those ink cartridges cost to replace?

Link -image via Fraunhofer IGB

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.

The 21st annual Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded on Thursday, September 29th. The tickets to the ceremony at Sanders Theater at Harvard University are sold out, but the presentations will be streamed live at YouTube. Also, if you want to organize a viewing party, the folks at Improbable Research will be glad to help you coordinate it. The theme this year is “CHEMISTRY,” which is why the promo video features chemist Daniel Rosenberg, who will perform at the event. Link

If you have a baby and want to know how successful he will be in certain sports or how popular he will be with the ladies, it turns out, you can actually gauge these pretty well even before he starts learning how to throw a baseball. Learn how and read more about weird physical indicators over on Cracked.

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Who knew that Grant from Mythbusters is actually a Doctor Who nut? Hopefully this means fans of the Time Lord can hope for a Doctor Who Mythbusters episode at some point.

Link Via The Mary Sue

Slap four leeches on your knee and after 80 minutes, the pain and stiffness of osteoarthritis melts away. Of the 16 patients in the trial, the 10 who received leech therapy felt instant relief after application, and the comfort lasted for four weeks. The control patients continued experiencing pain. Researchers claim the leeches’ saliva works as an anti-inflammatory.

If you want to show the world what you’re REALLY made of, guts and all, then your wait is almost over. Thanks to Japanese researchers from RIKEN, biological tissue can be turned transparent via chemical reagent, so you can look like a superhero without the need to have powers or a cool alien back story. Unfortunately, this reagent doesn’t work on living tissue, so you’ll have to wait a while longer for your clear skin makeover. Until then, read on at PopSci and imagine all the creepy possibilities!

Link -image via RIKEN