Neatorama

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• How Cooked Food Made Us Human
• The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
• Kitty Swims With Its Doggy Friends
• Finally, DJ Kitties Can Get In Some Practice
• How Do Blind People Clean Up After Their Dogs?
• You Could Adopt Sirius Black
• Should David Tennant Light The Olympic Torch?
• Rambo Tribute in a Subway
• 10 Cities in the Sights of Deadly Volcanoes
• Memory "Quantum" Lasts 125 Milliseconds
• Euthanasia Coaster: The Suicide Roller Coaster
• Surgical Robot Peels a Grape
• The X-Men Guide to Puberty
• "No, She Lives in a Dark Place Now."
• This Is A Steam-Propelled Tricycle
• Tool-Using Fish Captured on Video
• Embroidered X-Rays
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Logo on a Pizza
• The Imperial March by Two Floppy Disk Drives
• Chariots Discovered in Ancient Chinese Tomb
• It's a Great Day in South Carolina
• Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt #18

How Cooked Food Made Us Human Posted: 30 Sep 2011 05:13 AM PDT Want to know how a bunch of brawny apes evolved into brainy humans? It all comes down to a pair of tongs and a flame. People and animals eat basically the same food; the only difference is that we cook our meals. But does the ability to flame-broil a burger and burn a meal really make us that special? According to Harvard anthropology professor Richard Wrangham, it does. Armed with mounting evidence, Wrangham believes that fire-kissed foods are what separated man from beast, allowing our ancestors to grow bigger brains and evolve into the intelligent creatures we are today. THE MISSING LINK The story starts roughly 2 million years ago in the age of the habiline -the so-called “missing link” between humans and apes. Habilines walked upright, made primitive stone tools, and had brains the size of oranges (roughly half the size of our brains today). Like chimpanzees, they subsisted mainly on fruits and veggies, with the occasional bit of raw meat on the side. They had strong teeth to chew all that plant matter, and big guts to process all that fibrous material. For them, digestion took an extremely long time. In fact, it’s believed that their bodies were constantly engaged in processing food. (Even today, chimpanzees spend more than six hours a day just chewing.) So, how did Homo habilis evolve into Homo erectus? The dominant theory since the 1950s has been that meat-eating was responsible for the shift because it required habilines to gradually develop human intelligence. There’s something to the idea: To hunt game, our apelike ancestors had to reply on more than just physical prowess; they had to be clever and cooperate. The better they got at hunting, the smarter they became. But the “meat made humans” hypothesis rankled biologist Richard Wrangham. In his 2009 book Catching Fire, Wrangham argues that meat-eating alone cannot account for the tremendous physical changes that occurred in the evolution of humans. Instead, he believes that man’s discovery of fire -and more importantly, cooking- did the heavy lifting. (Image credit: Banksy work, photo by Flickr user Lord Jim) For decades, many scientists dismissed cooking as a pleasant byproduct of civilization, a symbol of man’s dominion over nature. But Wrangham builds the case that cooking was crucial to human evolution because it made digestion so much more efficient, increasing the amount of energy our bodies derived from what we ate. As a result, humans became better able to think, hunt, sing, dance, paint on walls, and invent new tools. Ultimately, the top chefs were more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass along cooking techniques to their offspring, along with the physical evolutionary changes that come with them -namely, bigger brains. The idea that cooked food offers more energy than uncooked food doesn’t immediately make sense. After all, recent studies show that cooking can leach food of its calories and nutrients. To understand the answers, we need to look inside -literally. GUT FEELINGS Back in the early 19th century, digestion was a mysterious process. But all that changed in 1822, when a 28-year-old Canadian soldier named Alexis St. Martin was accidentally shot in the belly, leaving portions of his lungs and stomach exposed. Thanks to the quick-thinking work of U.S. Army surgeon William Beaumont, the blast didn’t kill St. Martin. However, it did leave him with a fist-sized hole in his stomach that never closed. Immediately, Dr. Beaumont spotted an opportunity; it was a chance to observe human digestion as it happened. Alexis St. Martin Beaumont began introducing foods directly into St. Martin’ stomach and watched what happened. He observed the young man digest cooked lean beef; raw, salted beef; raw cabbage, soup, and cooked potatoes. The doctor quickly realized that the more tender and cooked the food, the more swiftly and easily it passed through the bowels. One experiment was especially telling. At noon one day, Beaumont introduced both boiled beef and raw beef into St. Martin’s stomach. By 2 PM, the boiled beef was gone, but the raw beef exhibited only slight maceration. St. Martin’s stomach showed that consuming cooked foods makes digestion easier and more efficient. Because it’s already warmed and chopped into pieces, it saves the body work. According to Wrangham, that’s why human colons are so much shorter than those of other primates. Digestion is more efficient, which makes longer digestive tracts unnecessary. It’s also why humans have small, blunt teeth and weak jaws compared to apes, who spend their days chewing through tough, raw food. THE TRUTH ABOUT RAW FOODS The flip side of eating cooked foods is that humans are no longer adept at eating raw meals. Simply put, our tummies are just not made for that anymore. But the notion runs contrary to the growing raw food movement in America. Proponents claim that strict raw food diets can lower cholesterol and blood pressure and promote weight loss -all of which is true. But the unbalanced diet comes with problems. A recent German study found that, of the women they followed on totally raw diet, 50 percent of them ceased to menstruate entirely. Additionally, men on raw food diets reported significantly decreased sex drives. So, while catwalk-model proportions might be all the rage, for our ancient ancestors, such reduced reproductive capabilities would have been disastrous. In the end, we don’t just need hot meals to satisfy our hunger; we need them to fuel our libidos. In a sense, prepared foods are old-fashioned aphrodisiacs. For Homo sapiens, cooking is as natural as the birds and the bees. A Window Into the Stomach -and the Soul So, whatever happened to Alexis St. Martin, the man whose stomach helped the world understand digestion? In 1833, more than a decade after he started working with Dr. William Beaumont, St. Martin cut ties with the medical community. The man with the transparent stomach got fed up with being a scientific freak show. When he died in 1880, at the age of 86, St. Martin’s family kept his body for four days to make sure it rotted, and then buried it in an unusually deep grave, hoping to deter any medical interest in his remains. _______________________ The article above, a portion of the special section Shocking Moments in the History of Food written by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, is reprinted with permission from the July-August 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue! Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!

The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize Winners Posted: 30 Sep 2011 03:45 AM PDT Our friends at Improbable Research awarded the annual Ig Nobel Prizes last night at Harvard’s Sanders Theater for research that makes you laugh, and then think. This is the 21st year for the awards. Ten prizes were awarded in different disciplines; here are some of the more notable: 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

Kitty Swims With Its Doggy Friends Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:23 PM PDT Have you ever wondered what happens when a kitty jumps off a boat to go swimming with two dogs, who happen to be its best friends? Flickr user Terrie Olesky-Tyge can answer your question with her adorable collection of pictures featuring exactly that scenario. Link Via BuzzFeed

Finally, DJ Kitties Can Get In Some Practice Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:17 PM PDT Does your kitty always want to sleep on your turn table? Then perhaps it’s time to get them their own Cat Scratch -the kitty scratcher for wannabe DJ kitties. Link Via Laughing Squid

How Do Blind People Clean Up After Their Dogs? Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:11 PM PDT Have you ever wondered how someone who can’t see can clean up their seeing eye dog’s mess? Mental Floss has a great article that answers this burning question: Dogs go into different stances depending on whether they're peeing or pooping, and by running a hand down the dog's back, the handler can figure out what's going on. If the dog's back is flat, it's peeing — male guide dogs are trained to not lift their leg when peeing; they utilize the same "lean forward" pee stances that females use — and no cleanup if needed. If the dog's back is rounded, handlers know some cleanup will be required. By feeling their way down the dog's back to its butt and tail, they have a pretty good idea of where the poop is going to wind up. Once the dog is finished, the handler just leans down with their plastic bag and can find the poop pretty easily. Red more about their special potty training at the link. Link

You Could Adopt Sirius Black Posted: 29 Sep 2011 11:04 PM PDT Or at least…his dog incarnation from the films. That’s right, Berry, the gorgeous black dog that played Sirius Black when he was a dog in the movies, is now up for adoption because his owner doesn’t have time to take care of such an energetic senior dog. The only catch -you have to adopt his best buddy Porridge too, but they make a great pair and are both movie stars, so that really shouldn’t be much of a drawback. Link Via The Mary Sue

Should David Tennant Light The Olympic Torch? Posted: 29 Sep 2011 10:55 PM PDT Doctor Who fans may remember the David Tennant episode “Fear Her,” which involved Mr. Tennant lighting the Olympic torch in the 2012 London games. As it turns out, fans are trying to make this a reality, starting a petition to have Mr. Tennant play The Doctor as he lights the torch in the upcoming games. If you’re interested, you can sign the petition at the link. If not, well, it probably won’t happen anyway, so don’t do anything. Link

Rambo Tribute in a Subway Posted: 29 Sep 2011 07:15 PM PDT (Video Link) The genius of many street artists lies in seeing patterns in ordinary objects that other people don’t. In a digital display in the Montréal Métro, Robert Hibourassa saw action hero John Rambo. -via Dude Craft

10 Cities in the Sights of Deadly Volcanoes Posted: 29 Sep 2011 07:05 PM PDT Would you live in a city near an active volcano? Many people do, all over the world. Environmental Graffiti shows us ten cities in which the people live side-by-side with the threat of explosions, ash, and lava. Shown is the city of Pasto, Colombia, (population 450,000) which is only 9 kilometers from the active volcano Galeras. Link (Image credit: Camilo Martínez S.)

Memory "Quantum" Lasts 125 Milliseconds Posted: 29 Sep 2011 06:22 PM PDT Is there a "unit" of memory? Some scientists now think so. Using a method that allowed them to make brain measurements down to the millisecond levels, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology discovered that there's a discrete "quantum" of memory: You're rudely awakened by the phone. Your room is pitch black. It's unsettling, because you're a little uncertain about where you are -- and then you remember. You're in a hotel room. Sound like a familiar experience? Or maybe you've felt a similar kind of disorientation when you walk out of an elevator onto the wrong floor? But what actually happens inside your head when you experience moments like these? [A new study] describes exactly how the brain reacts in situations like these, during the transition between one memory and the next. [...] Their findings show that memory is divided into discrete individual packets, analogous to the way that light is divvied up into individual bits called quanta. Each memory is just 125 milliseconds long -- which means the brain can swap between different memories as often as eight times in one second. "The brain won't let itself get confused," says Professor May-Britt Moser. "It never mixes different places and memories together, even though you might perceive it that way. This is because the processes taking place inside your head when your brain is looking for a map of where you are take place so fast that you don't notice that you are actually switching between different maps. When you feel a little confused, it is because there is a competition in your brain between two memories. Or maybe more than two." Link

Euthanasia Coaster: The Suicide Roller Coaster Posted: 29 Sep 2011 05:23 PM PDT The Euthanasia Coaster, designed by London's Royal College of Art's student Julijonas Urbonas, lets you ride the last ride of your life. Literally. The three-minute ride involves a long, slow, climb -- nearly a third of a mile long -- that lifts one up to a height of more than 1,600 feet, followed by a massive fall and seven strategically sized and placed loops. The final descent and series of loops take all of one minute. But the gravitational force -- 10 Gs -- from the spinning loops at 223 miles per hour in that single minute is lethal. According to Urbonas, the "Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetic euthanasia machine in the form of a roller coaster, engineered to humanely -- with elegance and euphoria -- take the life of a human being." [...] Euthanasia Coaster isn't simply meant to be about death. Urbonas sees it as both an intellectual and artful departure from the world, one that isn't about the paperwork and medical issues of the current euthanasia system. The few places where voluntary euthanasia is legal include: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. "There is no special ritual, nor is death given special meaning except that of the legal procedures and psychological preparation. It is like death is divorced from our cultural life…" Urbonas writes. "…But if it is already legal, why not to make it more meaningful?" Link

Surgical Robot Peels a Grape Posted: 29 Sep 2011 05:01 PM PDT (Video Link) We’ve seen the revolutionary Da Vinci Surgical System do amazingly precise movements before, including folding paper airplanes and playing Operation. In this video, surgeons at Southmead Hospital in the UK demonstrated its ability to make delicate cuts by peeling a grape. So far, there are only 1,032 Da Vinci robots in service around the world, but that number is steadily increasing as doctors find it useful. Link -via Popular Science

The X-Men Guide to Puberty Posted: 29 Sep 2011 04:52 PM PDT All mutants go through that awkward stage when their mutations begin to affect their bodies. But it’s okay! Don’t feel bad about it and don’t feel like you can’t ask questions about what you’re experiencing. Professor Xavier is here to help you with this handy guide. Click on the link to read the rest. Link | Image: Caldwell Tanner

"No, She Lives in a Dark Place Now." Posted: 29 Sep 2011 04:36 PM PDT This funny mashup by an unknown cartoonist references the children’s TV show Teletubbies and the horror film The Ring. The demonic Samara Morgan emerges from a different sort of television set. Link -via Geekosystem | Image: unknown

This Is A Steam-Propelled Tricycle Posted: 29 Sep 2011 04:28 PM PDT The photo was taken in 1888 in front of the Smithsonian Institution’s “Castle” on the Mall.  The driver is Lucius D. Copeland, who invented the device (30 mile range, 10 mph).  His passenger is Frances “Fannie” Benjamin Johnston, later to become one of Washington’s most famous photographers. The steam-powered tricycle was much more practical than its French predecessor, the dog-powered tricycle. Photo credit to the Smithsonian Institution Archives, via.

Tool-Using Fish Captured on Video Posted: 29 Sep 2011 04:21 PM PDT That's one smart fish! An orange-dotted turkfish was captured for the first time on video digging a clam out of the sand, then repeatedly throwing it against a rock to crush it. "The animal excavates sand to get the shell out, then swims for a long time to find an appropriate area where it can crack the shell," videographer Giacomo Bernardi, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement. "It requires a lot of forward thinking, because there are a number of steps involved. For a fish, it's a pretty big deal." [...] The clam-cracking tuskfish isn't the first fish to be observed using tools. The tuskfish is a kind of reef fish known as wrasse, and these species have been seen using rocks as anvils to crush shellfish. But this is the first time the behavior has been caught on video. LiveScience has the story and video clip [self-starting, with audio and pre-roll ads]

Embroidered X-Rays Posted: 29 Sep 2011 04:17 PM PDT Philadelphia-based artist Matthew Cox combines x-ray images and embroidery to show a clinical, scientific world below a colorful, artistic surface. Many of his works are portraits of pop culture figures including Snow White, Miss Piggy, and David Bowie. Link -via Flavorwire

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Logo on a Pizza Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:24 PM PDT The blog Foogos displays the work of a brilliant advertising agent who makes logos out of food products, such as this very appropriate TMNT pizza. In the gallery, you can find other food logos, primarily those of superheroes and sports teams. The Philadelphia Flyers logo in roast beef and cheddar? Good choice! Link and Gallery -via Comics Alliance

The Imperial March by Two Floppy Disk Drives Posted: 29 Sep 2011 03:11 PM PDT (Video Link) Although the Imperial March from Star Wars has played on a floppy disk drive before, it’s never been done this well. A blogger who goes by the name Silent explained how he did it: The sound comes from a magnetic head moved by stepper motor. To make a specific sound, head must be moved with appropriate frequency. FDD has a simple interface – the description may be found for example [ HERE ]. To move the head you need to activate the drive by pulling the DRVSB0 or 1 (depends on the cable you have and the connector – notice the crossover on the FDD ribbon cable) pin low and then falling edge on STEP pin makes the head move one step in direction dependent on DIR pin state. An ATMega microcontroller is generating those frequencies and it makes the drives play music. Link -via DVICE

Chariots Discovered in Ancient Chinese Tomb Posted: 29 Sep 2011 02:21 PM PDT Photo: Zhang Xiaoli/Xinhua Archaeologists in Luoyang, China, dug up 5 chariots and 12 horse skeletons from a 2,500-year-old tomb. The photos over at National Geographic are fantastic, but can someone explain to me why the skeletons of the horses are flat? Link

It's a Great Day in South Carolina Posted: 29 Sep 2011 12:19 PM PDT That's the greeting that's now mandated to the employees of the state government of South Carolina by its governor Nikki Haley: Haley said the change will boost the morale of state workers, remind them they work for the callers on the other end of the line and help her sell the state to employers. “It’s part of who I am,” Haley said. “As hokey as some people may think it is, I’m selling South Carolina as this great, new, positive state that everybody needs to look at.” Among the state agencies that are part of Haley’s Cabinet is the state’s prison system. Others include commerce, education, public safety and health. Will that work to improve the morale of callers and those that answer the phones? Or is it just plain silly? What do YOU think the greetings should be? Link

Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt #18 Posted: 29 Sep 2011 12:15 PM PDT Howdy, Neatoramanauts! It's time for our latest Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt. For those of you who haven't played before, the Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt is an online scavenger game where you can win a Tokyoflash watch of your choice and some really neat stuff from the NeatoShop. It's really easy and fun to play. We'll give you a set of clues, for example: 1. What is the name of Neatorama's baby blog? 2. What is 2+1? 3. What is the name of the top grill listed in our post Top 10 Coolest BBQ Grills? String the answers to form a link on the blog: http://www.neatorama.com/neatobambino-3-lynx (go ahead, copy and paste to your browser. We'll wait). Easy, rightt? Let's start the game, then! Here are the clues to today's Tokyoflash Treasure Hunt #18: 1. Visit Tokyoflash and check out their newest (and neatest yet) watch shown above. Fill in the blank: "______ when touched" 2. Visit the NeatoShop's Halloween Section. Check out the item that you'd bring to a wine lover's party on Halloween. Fill in the blank: "______ Corks - Wine Bottle Stoppers (Set of 3)" 3. Back to Tokyoflash and find one of their pocket watches. Fill in the blank: "Get ready for the _____" Got that? Visit Tokyoflash and the NeatoShop to find the clues. Then string the answers together to form the URL: http://www.neatorama.com/answer1-answer2-answer3 (all lower case, separated by dash) Good luck!

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