(PHOTO: Arahsae)

A Taiwanese study suggests that free-range eggs may contain many times the levels of toxins, such as the dioxins produced by burning trash, than regular eggs—and may therefore be unhealthier for us. The researchers’ explanation for this is that letting hens out of their cages gives them access to delicious soil, plants, worms, and insects that we have horribly polluted. What goes around comes around.

While this is interesting and important work, it’s a pity it’s been spun (at least in the press release, linked below) as a reason to be concerned about the safety of eating free-range eggs, rather than a story about how pervasive—and well traveled—these toxins are in urbanized Taiwan.

Here’s the press release, and here’s the full paper.

IMAGE: Darryl Cunningham

Get the full strip at Darryl’s blog.

PHOTO: Michael Newman.

Speaking of obvious research results, the New York Times posted a piece yesterday highlighting a new sex study from the University of Iowa that concluded the following:

...compared with those in serious relationships, people hooking up with a stranger or acquaintance and lovers in “friends with benefits” arrangements are much more likely to sleep around simultaneously.

...it may be that the people who are likely to enter non-serious sexual relationships are predisposed to be non-exclusive — not that the nature of the relationship itself causes non-monogamy.

In other words, what we seem to have here is a study showing that people who are having casual sex do it because they like it, and are likely to be having quite a bit of it.

For me, the money question is not so much “WHY, SCIENCE? WHY?” but “Why did you go and use old data—collected in 1995, apparently—for this seminal (heh) study?” Maybe it’s just me, but I think work of this significance warrants fresh data.

PHOTO: Rakka.

The BBC published an article last Friday subtitled “A future in which robots help around the home could prove harmful to humans, suggests a study.” Oh really? Under what circumstances?

The tests involved a robot arm weighing 14kg and a 1.1m reach that was equipped with a variety of bladed household tools including a steak knife, kitchen knife, scissors and screwdriver.

The robot arm was programmed to use the bladed tools to stab and cut a silicone lump, a leg from a dead pig and the arm of a human volunteer.

Striking, stabbing and puncturing tests with the safety system turned off were performed on the silicone and pig leg. Deep cuts resulted in most cases that, the researchers said, could prove to be “lethal” if inflicted on a living subject.

I was unable to find a link to the research itself, which was apparently presented at the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, but here is a video showing how a safety protocol preventing the robots from colliding with other objects could help to minimize the risk of horrible injuries from robots programmed to stab things.

Awesome. Hey, I wonder if not programming robots to stab things might be another way to do that? Just a thought, though. Don’t mind me, pioneering robotics researchers.

PHOTO: fakescience.tumblr.com.

A friend of Inkling tipped us off to this newish Tumblr site (Are all the cool kids on Tumblr now?) Fake Science, whose tagline is “When Facts are Too Confusing.” I wish I’d thought of it first.

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but aside from How Do We Get Oil, shown above (which cuts a little too close to the bone), I’m very fond of How do 3D Glasses work?

Enjoy. And become a Facebook fan! (Also, if you’re not already, here’s where to become a fan of Inkling.)

PHOTO: Sonnet Ehlers.

According to Radio Netherlands, a South African doctor named Sonnet Ehlers is poised to distribute thousands of free anti-rape condoms to local women sometime in the next two months, before the start of the 2010 World Cup. The condom, which Ehlers calls Rape-aXe, can be inserted by a woman like a tampon; if she is then penetrated by an attacker, the condom attaches itself to his penis through “razor-sharp barbs” that don’t break the skin, but do cause excruciating pain if an attempt is made to remove the condom. The idea is that the would-be rapist will hurriedly extract himself and hie to the nearest hospital, where he will first be treated (since the barbs can only be detached by surgical means) and then arrested.

Talk about the myth of the toothed vagina coming to life. I’m all for anti-rape measures, but one has to wonder whether the safety of a woman is going to be enhanced by the act of enraging a rapist with tiny barbs sticking into his penis.

More on the Rape-aXe, which was first developed five years ago and looks almost too much like a medieval torture device to be real, here and here.

Photo: AP/Jon Pall Vilhelmsson

As one of six non-Icelandic reporters capable of correctly pronouncing Eyjafjallajokull, the name of the Icelandic volcano that’s been stranding travelers all over the globe, NPR newscaster Korva Coleman has taken on the momentous responsibility of teaching others how to do it.  That’s right. It’s the NPR Eyjafjallajokull rap.

More—much more—almost too much more—help here.

(PHOTO:Magda Wieclawska)

German neurologists have just shown that reading words associated with painful experiences sets off a firestorm of activity in areas of the brain, like the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), that are responsible for processing physical pain.

Neutral, negative but not pain associated, and positive words were used as controls in the study, and the table showing both the German word list and the English translations is the real reason I’m posting this. It’s a fascinating cross-cultural study in itself. How could the word Krampfartig (English: crampy) not make your brain hurt? Peinigend (English: tantalising) makes me ponder; it’s true the word has tormenting origins, but it’s not quite right for English speakers. And on the positive side, I’m not sure what Hocherotisch (English: highly erotic) would do to my DLPFC, but I would sure like to find out.

You may peruse the table above, as well as the paper describing these findings, without fear—the team reported that no actual physical sensations of pain were associated with reading the painful words.

I’ve just come across this beautiful short film illustrating various mathematical concepts, mainly from geometry, as they play out in nature. Cristóbal Vila is the graphic designer and CGI artist who made the movie. For a detailed explanation of the ideas behind the film and how Vila interpreted them, I highly recommend reading this. Vila even gracefully cops to perpetuating a common misconception, which is that Nautilus shells embody a perfect Fibonacci spiral. Kudos. 

Solarbeat interprets the rotations of the planets in the solar system in musical form, and it is beautiful. Plus, it entertained my cat (who has never before paid any attention to my computer screen) for a good three hundred years or so. In Mercury time, anyway.