Jeremy, the Left-Coiled Snail

I'm not sure how I managed to miss this story before, but Jeremy the Left-Coiled Snail (who died in October, at the ripe old age of 2 or so), who was named after Jeremy Corbyn (on account of his being a 'lefty' snail), had a chance to shine in the spotlight earlier this year. And he even had scientists to help him with his sex life, though all of his 56 children ended up being righties.

In the Wikipedia entry, I am amused by the deadpan nature of the information box in the upper-right corner.

(And, in case you're wondering, there are really good reasons to study genetically unusual orientations like this.)

Grammatical Paraphernalia and the Original Guardian

This — the debut of The Guardian — is interesting for many reasons, including its comma density and other grammatical paraphernalia.

(Tip of the cap to Sam Howison.)

"Is it Possible to Take All Words Out of Mathematical Expressions?"

I just read a really cool new article in American Scientist about terminology, symbolic, and pictorial developments in mathematics.

Matrices, chaos, and birdtracks all make an appearance. The article also includes appearances by Gibbs, Silvester, Yorke, Cvitanović, and others.

A 1995 Dystopian Vision of the Web

This article, presenting a dystopian vision of the Web, was written by astronomer Clifford Stoll in 1995. A recent article discusses Stoll's 1995 piece.

(Tip of the cap to Manlio De Domenico, who retweeted Valids Krebs.)

How Do People from Different Cultures Draw Circles?

Here is a really interesting article about how people from different cultures draw circles.

I was once — well, at least once — told in elementary school that I was drawing circles the wrong way (because I was using the wrong sense around the clock). I think I responded with the definition of a circle and that the definition doesn't depend on the sense in which one draws it, and I think my teacher did not appreciate that.

On a similar note, in high school, I once lost 50% of the point total on an answer for misspelling ellipse (by using one 'l' instead of two), which was the correct answer. I called bullshit (on the grounds that it was my mathematics knowledge that was being tested), but unfortunately I lost.

More closely related to the article, one thing I noticed in the UK is that the most common way to write an 'x' there is with two arcs, so that they won't always cross if one writes quickly. In contrast, I write two attempts at lines that explicitly cross. (I haven't checked if this is US versus UK convention.)

And, indeed, most Americans drew their circles counterclockwise in this data set, and I draw mine clockwise.

(Tip of the cap to Improbable Research for their Facebook post.)

Update: Here is a lovely quote from the article: In a 1977 paper Theodore Blau, then-president of the American Psychological Association and creator of the torque test, argued that drawing clockwise circles was a sign of learning and behavioral aberrance.

Trojan Butterflies

I recently wrote a blurb for the Improbable Research blog on what I like to call "trojan butterflies". As you will see from my blurb and the article to which I link therein, the monicker is apt and the phenomenon is fascinating.

"Female Promiscuity Prevents Infanticide, Leads to Bigger Balls"

This vignette about a new paper in Science (see the intriguing article title in the title of my blog entry) is really interesting. It's basically an escalation of war in the proverbial battle of the sexes.

This Article Made Me Itch

IFLS has published a fascinating article about a new paper in the journal Neuron concerning why scratching an itch gives temporary relief but then makes the itch worse. I wish, though, that they had used the phrase "itching question" instead of "burning question". :) Reading this article made me itch more, by the way.

Origin of Mysterious World Trade Center Ship

I missed this story previously, but the remains of an old ship was unearthed under the collapsed World Trade Center in 2010, and now scientists believe that they know the origin of this ship. It seems to have been built from trees that were felled in Pennsylvania in 1773. Very cool!

Also, I love the description of the scientific article that reported the discovery as "probably the most attention grabbing story ever published in Tree-Ring Research".

"Male Spiders Can Detect Female Promiscuity"

This article, about how certain male spiders can detect female "promiscuity", is really neat.

Epigenetics and Enhanced Brain Connectivity from Reading a Good Book

These are actually from two separate series of studies --- and the former technically is referring to a single study --- but they have in common that they're both really interesting and both with strong connections to neuroscience (which of course has tons of cool things up its sleeves).

Epigenetics sounds like science fiction, and it includes behavioral epigenetics, which refers to genetic experiences that an animal (including humans) can have based on experiences of their ancestors. (You may be interested in the wikipedia entry on epigenetics.) It is also easy to see why this is a controversial subject.

Meanwhile, it was demonstrated in a recent study that brain connectivity (in the resting state) can increase for 5 days after reading an engaging novel. The popular article to which I have linked indicates that "function" increases, but it is a leap to go from the conclusion of increasing connectivity (which one can measure, e.g., using tools from network analysis) to that of increasing function. I only looked at the paper very briefly, but from a scientific perspective I am currently much more comfortable claiming the former than the latter. Note, however, that this is very consistent with loads of anecdotal evidence and what many people have claimed about their own reading experiences for a very long time. I view it as somewhat akin to exercise and do think the strong form of the big-picture conclusion to be pretty damn likely (and the result is both sensible and intuitive), but the bar for scientific comfort naturally must be very high (and obviously is much higher than what intuitively I believe to be valid).

(Tip of the cap to Stephen Heise for neurological tips on reading a good book and to Susan Baldry Dole --- Stephen's friend on Facebook --- for posting the link to the popular article on behavioral epigenetics.)

Fascinating

This video montage is best described using one word: fascinating.

You definitely want to watch the whole thing, by the way.

(Tip of the cap to Rob Neyer.)