Science Made Cool

Friday Parasite: Changeling Factory

What’s wrong with this picture? The chicks should all look the same, but one nestling is big for its age, and has a much bigger and brighter mouth than its nestmates. That’s because it’s not really a baby Eastern Phoebe – it’s a chick from one of North America’s most widespread parasitic birds, the Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater).

Cowbirds are brood parasites: they don’t sneak under other birds’ feathers to grab a meal (they actually eat insects and seeds), but they leave their eggs in other birds’ nests. Each spring, when other birds are finding mates and building nests, female cowbirds are hiding in the shadows: spying on nesting birds and until they see a chance to rush in and lay an egg in their brood. Cowbirds are veritable egg factories: each female can lay more than 3 dozen eggs in a summer, spread one at a time into nests from about 140 different host species. And although a few hosts can recognize cowbird eggs and either eject them, cover them over, or abandon the nest completely to start over, most host species wind up raising a cowbird changeling along with their own chicks.

Interestingly, although a cowbird chick hatches first and grows faster than its nestmates, it doesn’t typically take the European cuckoo route of tossing its foster siblings over the side. Instead, it helps its nestmates make a fuss when the adults come by the nest – and the extra noise convinces the parents to go out and forage more than if the cowbird chick was home alone. But when they bring back the goodies, the cowbird’s extra big mouth and aggressive begging makes sure that the parents feed it the most – over half the feedings instead of a more equitable one-third, according to a 2004 study by Mark Hauber (now at Hunter College) and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge. This means that a cowbird chick with nestmates actually gets more food (and grows faster) than when it’s alone in a nest. And once it’s grown and fledged, it’ll fly off to take its own turn making changelings.

Photo by Mark Hauber.

Kilner, R. (2004). Brood Parasitic Cowbird Nestlings Use Host Young to Procure Resources Science, 305 (5685), 877-879 DOI: 10.1126/science.1098487

Metaphor Alert

The Spirit rover is stuck for good. It got bogged down in soft sand on the planet Mars months ago, and engineers at JPL have finally thrown in the towel. The rover can still be used as a science station, but its days of exploration are done.

It's almost like an allegory of something.

Definition Trouble

Pity the poor International Astronomical Union.

In the course of kicking Pluto out of the planetary club they made an error in phrasing which turns out to exclude all other planets outside the Solar System. The definition of a planet adopted by the I.A.U. in 2006 specifies that it is a body "orbiting the Sun" -- which of course rules out bodies orbiting other stars. Trouble is, we've now found 429 planets -- or whatever we're supposed to call them -- orbiting other stars.

So now the organization has a difficult choice to make. They can keep the definition as is, thereby excluding a growing number of planets, many of which dwarf anything in the Solar System, and leaving astronomers who study extrasolar planets without a proper term for the things they're observing. Or they can re-open the planetary definition can of worms, with the highly vocal Pluto lobby enlisting schoolchildren and state legislators to lobby for their favorite iceball.

Ah, well, at least they get some public attention. How often do you have intense public debate over decisions about nomenclature made by scientific societies?

More than just the Friday Parasite...

…it’s the Daily Parasite! 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, and Susan Perkins – a parasitologist at the American Museum of Natural History -- is celebrating by highlighting a different species of parasite every day this year on her blog, aptly-named “Parasite of the Day.” She’s taking nominations, so if you have a favorite let her know. So far, it’s 22 down, 343 to go. 

(A tip of the hat to Carl Zimmer for pointing me to this new blog).

Activate the Cold Ray!

In one of Sir Arthur C. Clarke's nostalgic essays about prewar science fiction he drops a little scorn on a story by S.P. Meek about a "cold ray." Clarke points out that you can't have a "beam of cold" because cold isn't a thing, it's an absence. So the whole idea is silly.

Unless it isn't. Behold laser refrigeration! It's not quite a "cold ray" but it does use lasers to make the target colder. The trick is that the target is a Ytterbium crystal and the lasers are exactly tuned to stimulate fluorescence by the crystals. The energy emitted is greater than the energy absorbed, making the crystals colder.

Now unless you happen to routinely wear Ytterbium clothes, you're not going to have to worry about Mr. Freeze zapping you with his cold ray, but it's still pretty awesome. Now excuse me while I fire up the laser to cool my drink. 

Jim's List

At Arisia this past weekend I participated in the panel on "Best Science Fiction of 2009." Because I only had about a week's notice what panels I'd be on, and because I was working like a maniac to finish something I was getting paid to write, I had to come up with a list of stories that I could research without leaving my chair. My solution was to look for the best short fantasy and science fiction of 2009 available online. My suggestions were well-received at the panel, and several attendees asked if I might post the list to my 'blog. I happily agreed.

It's important to note that this isn't my list of the Best SF/Fantasy of 2009. It's the best stuff that isn't in the major print magazines. That's a critical distinction because the magazines, even in this age of declining circulation and sales, are still the primary market for short fiction. They get the first crack at the good stuff. Anyway, here's the list. I've tried to provide links where possible. They are in alphabetical order by author.

"Placa del Fuego" by Tobias Buckell, Clarkesworld #34 (July 2009) -- this story reminded me strongly of Kipling's Kim, and the alien monster was very strange and creepy.

"Brief Candle" by Jason Chapman, Clarkesworld #38 (November 09) -- I enjoyed the shifting viewpoint as the robots gain more intelligence and understanding.

"The One With the Interstellar Group Consciousness" by James Alan Gardner (Federations) -- interstellar diplomacy as an episode of Friends. This one isn't online, it's in a print anthology.

"Another End of the Empire" by Tim Pratt (Strange Horizons) -- a Dark Lord (who has obviously read the List) tries to stop the young man destined to destroy his empire.

"Her Voice in a Bottle" by Tim Pratt (Subterranean, Winter 09) -- a tale right on the margin of fantasy; this could easily have appeared in a "mainstream" market with no changes. Mr. Pratt shows some impressive range.

"The Second Gift Given" by Ken Scholes, Clarkesworld #29 (Feb 2009) -- a story of what remains of humanity in the very far future.

"The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram" by Jeff Soesbe (DayBreak Magazine) -- an police officer in a future India has to handle a weird crisis involving elephants.

"Overtime" by Charles Stross (Tor.com) -- a tale of Bob Howard and the Laundry on Christmas Eve.

"The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew" by Cat Valente, Clarkesworld #35 (August 09) -- this one was almost impossible to describe to the panel audience; just read it.

"Riders of the Three-Toed Horse" by Garrett Vance (Baen's Universe) -- a geologist wanders into a prehistoric pocket of the west.

  

Arisia Schedule

Anyone who wants to see me in the heavily-bundled-up flesh can attend the Arisia science fiction convention in Cambridge this weekend. I'll be there Friday evening through Sunday morning.

My schedule:

The Best Science Fiction of 2009          Paul Revere A         Fri 8:00 PM
Non-Feudal Political Systems in Fantasy      William Dawes B      Sat 11:00 AM
Making Your Own Way                  Haym Solomon         Sat 12:00 PM
The Crossroads of Magic and Science          Molly Pitcher          Sun 10:00 AM

I don't know if they've put me down for readings or anything else, so check your program!

Puzzle-Solving by Birds and Boys

March, 2006: My three year old son sat at one end of a table in the psychology lab, excitedly shaking a tiny green truck sealed inside a Plexiglas tube. The game he was playing was simple: if he could get the truck out of the tube, he got to keep it. He’d already ‘won’ two toys – a small Koosh animal he’d had to push out of the tube with a snug-fitting rod, and a toy bug he’d retrieved from the far end of the table with a rake. But this time the rod was a couple of feet out of reach, and the rake’s handle was too fat to fit inside the tube. After a few minutes of shaking and poking, he grabbed the rake, pulled the rod across the table, and pushed the truck out of the tube. Score three for Robin; another data point for the graduate student running the experiment.

Cognitive scientists think that the ability to use one tool to retrieve another is closely associated with the brain’s ability to reason and plan. Obviously, people can do it -- although the ability doesn’t develop until late in toddlerhood -- but there’s evidence that it isn’t a uniquely human behavior. Placed in a situation where they need to use one tool to reach another in order to retrieve food, some individual gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans, and capuchin monkeys solve the “two tool” problem without coaching. And more recent research suggests that some birds are in on the act, too. Take a look at this video from the University of Oxford, in which a New Caledonian crow (Corvus moneduloides) named Betty chooses not two, but three tools in a row –successively using a shorter stick to pull out a longer stick until she gets one that’s long enough to reach her treat. 

Happy 400th Birthday to the Medicean Stars!

On January 7, 1610, Galileo Galilei first reported his discovery of three new stars, as he watched the planet Jupiter through his new telescope. This was moderately big news, since telescopic astronomy was brand-new and pretty much every time you pointed a lens at the sky you found new stars.

But these new stars were even more interesting than Galileo had thought. Over the next few weeks he realized that they moved with Jupiter against the backdrop of "fixed" stars. Not only that, but they shifted around, sometimes appearing on one side of Jupiter and sometimes on another. The number varied sometimes, too, though he never saw more than four. He began to realize they weren't stars at all, but moons orbiting Jupiter.

A month after his first report, Galileo went public. In a stroke of inspired scientific sycophancy, he named his new discoveries the "Medicean Stars" after his patron Duke Cosimo II de Medici, ruler of Florence.* Non-Florentines weren't as excited about the name as Galileo was, and eventually other astronomers settled on the nomenclature invented by the German Simon Marius (a.k.a. Simon Mayr): Io, Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto -- all lovers of Jupiter in mythology.

So it's only fitting that 2010 is the year a joint Russian-American manned space mission visits Jupiter so we can see for ourselves what those moons are like! Good luck to Dr. Floyd and the courageous cosmonauts! Oh, wait, that's just a movie. Looks like we'll have to wait until the 500th anniversary for a visit.

*That was in the Bad Old Days. Nowadays scientist are never influenced by ideology, funding, or politicking. It simply never happens.

Kepler Delivers

A little more than a year ago I reported on the Kepler mission -- an orbiting telescope dedicated to searching for extrasolar planets. Well, NASA's announced that Kepler has made its first hits. The satellite has so far identified five worlds circling other stars. All five are big "hot Jupiter" types, massive worlds circling close to their parent stars.

This is not a surprise to the astronomers running the project, as that kind of world is apparently the easiest to spot. Smaller worlds like Earth with longer orbital cycles take longer to identify. It will likely be several years before there are enough observations to tell if any of the stars watched by Kepler have planets like ours.