Using statistics going all the way back to 1970, Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden of USC created the map to enable emergency management planners to examine various natural hazard risks to populations all over the country. These are deaths by floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, extreme temperatures and other natural (but violent) causes.

The full publication from the International Journal of Health Geographics is available as a pdf at Spatial patterns of natural hazards mortality in the United States. But here’s a sneak preview… what’s your county’s ‘death-by-natural-hazard’ risk look like?

Science Daily reported over the weekend that Keio University research has demonstrated that pigeons show superior self-recognition abilities to three year old humans.

Professor Shigeru Watanabe and graduate student Kohji Toda managed to train pigeons to recognize themselves in real-time using mirrors and videotape, then found that their pigeons can recognize themselves in video images with a 5 to 7 second delay. Human 3-year olds typically have trouble recognizing themselves with just a 2 second delay.

Thus pigeons now join chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins and elephants in having the ability to recognize themselves, which means that particularly large brains aren’t necessary to the ability. It seems that we are learning that the other forms of life we share our planet with are quite a bit smarter than we’ve traditionally given them credit for!

• Nearly 50% of the bacteria in your body (and humans harbor 3 times more bacterial cells than human cells) live on the surface of your tongue, which (by the way) is the strongest muscle in your body. Probably a good reason why Mommy-Kisses work better than Mommy-Licks on boo-boos.

• The incidence of immune system diseases has increased more than 200% in the last five years. Yikes! Is that environmental?

• By the time a person is 35 years old, s/he begins losing about 7,000 brain cells a day which are never replaced. Whoa. I’d say something profound about that, but I forgot what the subject was…

• A moderate sunburn damages blood vessels in the skin so seriously that it takes between four and fifteen months for them to heal. The reason I keep SPF 50 on hand all summer.

• Right-handed people live an average of nine years longer than left-handed people. Need I remind readers that correlation does NOT equal causation?

Go on over to One Big Health Nut and read the rest for yourself!

More ‘Weird Science News’ today. Seems that the burgeoning raven population in the UK – where ravens were once very rare and are still a protected species – has recently taken to forming large gangs and killing farm livestock in Scotland, Wales and some parts of England.

Now, ravens are the smartest of birds. According to scientific researchers, they’re right up there with dogs and primates on the intelligence scale, and like some parrots can even learn to speak human languages. Just ask Edgar Allen Poe! And while ravens are carrion-eaters mostly, they are known to be birds of prey that will attack rabbits and other small critters. Their beaks are sharp and sickle-shaped, their talons are muscular. They get to be about two feet long, and are extraordinary aerial acrobats. They are also the primary bad guys in Daphne du Mourier’s classic horror novel The Birds, as made into the film classic of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. There have been some B-movie reprises too, though they shall remain nameless (so as not to reveal my personal addiction to B-grade horror movies).

We get raven gangs here in the southern Appalachians. During one memorable grandchild birthday party they descended to steal as many of a scattered bag of lemon drops as they possibly could, then became furious when those hard candies stuck their beaks together with a mass of yellow goo. We laughed and laughed, they didn’t think it was the least bit funny. Probably a good thing they didn’t decide to attack, now that I know they’re killers!

Check out the story from Britain’s Daily Mail about these killer raven gangs. Seems farmers are losing their newborn lambs as fast as they’re born, and now the ravens have started going after calves and even full-grown sheep!

While I suspect recent UK policies to immediately cremate dead livestock (imposed due to fears of Mad Cow and such) has led to some hungry ravens doing whatever they have to do to survive without ready carrion, I hope they don’t decide to decimate raven populations again. These really are spectacular birds.

That great practical joke that life’s designer [be it blind nature or purposeful god] played is still with us to confound orderly notions of biological evolution. The genome of Australia’s duck-billed platypus has been sequenced by an international group of scientists led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The venomous, egg-laying, duck-billed, web-footed, beaver-tailed mammal is one of the earliest offshoots of the mammalian lineage from when it split off from primitive ancestors some 166 million years ago. The genome confirms the chimeric status of this odd animal which displays traits of reptiles, birds and mammals.

As part of their analysis, researchers compared the platypus genome with human, mouse, dog, opossum and chicken genomes. Chicken genome was chosen because it represents a group of egg-laying animals that includes extinct reptiles that passed on much of their DNA to mammals over the course of evolution. When analyzed, the genetic sequences for venom production in the male platypus was found to have arisen from duplications in a group of genes evolved from ancestral reptilian genomes. They hypothesize that duplications in those very same genes led to the evolution of venom independently in modern reptiles.

The project involved sequencing about 2.2 billion base pairs and 18,500 genes. The Platypus has 52 chromosomes and an unusual 10 sex chromosomes. The platypus X chromosome also bears a striking similarity to the sex chromosome of birds.

Final conclusion? The duck-billed platypus is just as bizarre a mix-and-match critter genetically as it appeared to be when the first specimens were shown to the scientific community some 200 years ago. Skeptics then believed the animal was someone’s idea of a practical joke hoax. Turns out it really is a genetic practical joke, but it comes as-is in nature.

Links:

Platypus Genome Explains Animal’s Peculiar Features
Daily Mail: It’s a bird, it’s a beaver…

Most school children have at one time or another encountered a photo of a twisted bristlecone pine tree in California purporting to have begun its life before Abraham left Ur [the 'Methuselah' tree at ~4767 years old]. Science Daily reported last week that a spruce tree has been discovered in the Dalarna province of Sweden that is twice that age!

Yes, this not very old-looking little tree has been dated by researchers at Umeå University’s physical geography department at ~9550 years old. Just as interesting is that this ancient tree is a genetically identical clone of a previous tree – from whose roots it sprouted all those many years ago – and which left a few scraps of old wood in the area for researchers to analyze and a laboratory in Miami, Florida to date via C-14.

Researchers combing the Swedish mountains from Lapland to Dalarna have discovered a cluster of about 20 spruces that are all more than 8,000 years old. Which has to qualify the grove as the most ancient stand of virgin timber on the planet.

World’s Oldest Living Tree

For something different and profound, consider the case of a baby girl named Lali born near New Delhi, India on March 11. She has a rare birth defect called diprosopus that gave her two faces on one head. ABC News reported that the resident medical officer of the Saifi Hospital where Lali was born has thus far been unsuccessful in his attempts to convince the parents to allow CT scans or MRI to determine whether there are duplicated internal organs or invisible, life threatening deformities that might be corrected by surgery.

Most babies with this condition are stillborn or die shortly after birth, but Lali so far has shown no breathing or digestion difficulties, both mouths are being fed. She was born normally and left the hospital with her mother 8 hours after birth.

This condition is not technically a case of cojoined twinning, where a single embryo duplicates and does not completely separate. Rather, it is due to malfunctioning in the developing embryo of a single protein called Sonic hedgehog homolog [SHH]. SHH protein governs the width of the face and features, and governs proper development of the brain and spinal cord via a signaling cascade.

Very few two-faced animals (including humans) have survived, usually due to abnormalities of brain or internal organs. The most famous – until now – was a pig named Ditto who finally died from not being able to coordinate his breathing and swallowing.

As interesting as the specific cause and spectacular physical results are, the socio-cultural issue is just as phenomenal. It could be argued that the parents (poor villagers and farm workers) should be forced to allow the medical tests that would determine the extent of deformities not apparent on the outside, but in their situation one might as easily ask “what for?” So long as the baby is in no distress, why interfere?

In her home country Lali is considered to be a reincarnated goddess, one of Ganesh’s manifestations. Hindus from all over the country and world are making pilgrimages to touch her feet, and giving offerings toward her tender care and blessings. Worship is simply not the same sort of thing as a carnival freak show.

Also consider that in India the practice of female infanticide is rampant because couples want sons, not daughters. In this particular case, the girl-child is a great blessing from heaven, with an entire village to protect and defend her! That may be the best way to live a life (no matter how long or short), given what the child has been given.

While it would be great if medical researchers and biologists could trace the specifics of the abnormality, if we could know if Lali has two brains, and whether some environmental toxin in the parents’ rural farming region may have caused the situation, it’s okay for the people in this child’s life to treat her like a goddess.

Links:

Baby with 2 faces born
Baby With Two Faces Doing Well
Will Baby Survive?

This is the final installment of our 50 Weird Science tidbits, odd factoids and strange-but-true trivia. There are of course more weird things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But these 50 should get you through at least one championship round down at the pub. By the way, the word “dreamt” is the only word in the English language that ends in “mt.” That’s a freebie!

41. Plants Have Family Values Too

Researchers from Canada found that plants can have complex social interactions despite being… um, vegetative. Plants will grow more aggressively near unrelated plants than when they grow near relatives from the same maternal family.


42. The World’s Most Dangerous Animal

The not-so humble mosquito wins this award hands down. Mosquitoes transmitting countless diseases kill more animals – including humans – than any other animal (or plant) on Earth.



43. Hot Bed [Bugs] of Sexual Deception

Both the males and females of the African bat bug, a relative of bed bugs, have evolved fake genitals in order to protect themselves from the species’ violent mating practices. Some females have fake genitals of both male and female variety! The species does manage to reproduce prolifically anyway.


44. One Species In Which Dad Does All The Work

In seahorses it’s the male who gets pregnant. He incubates the offspring for three weeks, spends about 72 hours in labor, then gives birth to up to 200 baby seahorses at a time.


45. Alternative Recycling of Humans

A Swedish company has developed a new, environmentally friendly means of dealing with the bodies of the dead. They freeze the bodies in liquid nitrogen, then use sound waves to smash them to powder. From which water is removed in a vacuum chamber and metals are screened out.


46. And Now for the Weather Report…

In the days when apothecaries kept leeches in jars, it was observed that when the weather was calm the leeches stayed at the bottom of the water jar. But when a change in the weather was coming, the leeches would rise to the top of the water. For storms the leeches would rise quickly, descending again when the storm passed.


47. Forecast: Sunny

A solar panel array covering an area of 100 by 100 miles in the US Mojave Desert would produce enough electricity to replace all the coal fired power plants in America.


48. Old Sol Is Expecting Visitors

A red dwarf star labeled Gliese 710 is traveling toward our sun at nearly 50 times the speed of sound. In a million years it will be within just over half a light year away. Our current closest neighbor is Alpha Centauri, just over 4 light years away. But don’t worry. In only 10,000 years a red dwarf called Barnard’s Star will be our closest neighbor.


49. Please Don’t Lick the Walls

The world’s only hotel made entirely of salt (including the dining tables and chairs) is the Hotel de Sal Playa in the Uyuni salt flats of Bolivia.


50. …And Don’t Drink the Water

97% of the water on earth is undrinkable. An estimated 20% of the world’s surface fresh water supply is contained in Lake Baikal in southern Siberia (the world’s deepest lake at more than mile in depth).

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21-30 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
31-40 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
41-50 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities

Getting us past the halfway point in this series of things odd and quite possibly unknown, I’m going to go with some odd and interesting plant and animal facts, including an in-development “designer” breed of cat that just might steal my heart away from Maine Coons…

21. Did Tom Sawyer know these were under the raft?

These 7-foot, 220-pound Mississippi paddlefish are among the world’s biggest freshwater animals. Kin to sturgeon, they’re popular sources of meat and roe for caviar.


22. Designer Way to Help Endangered Tigers

Meet the Toyger! Breeding programs began in the 1980s to develop a breed of house cat that strongly resembles the mightiest of big cats. In 1993 Toygers were first registered with the International Cat Association [TICA], and now boasts grand champions. Must. Have. One…



23. Gorillas Do It People-Style

This pair of wild western lowland gorillas (nicknamed George and Leah) have the distinction of providing the proof that “people-style” is an alternative to “doggie-style” among our nearest animal relatives. Other than bonobos, whose notorious sexual procilivities may have served as inspiration for the Kama Sutra.


24. How Long Can a Germ Live?

The current championship crown belongs to an 8 million year old bacterium that was taken from the oldest known ice on planet Earth, and is now happily reproducing again in a laboratory petrie dish.


25. Where’d You Get Those Peepers?

An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain. The emu has even less intellectual gear. According to Tim Nielsen, bird supervisor of the Royal Adelaide Zoo, emus are a serious contender for world’s dumbest bird.


26. Those Notorious Killer Coconuts

It’s a fact. More humans are killed every year by falling coconuts than by shark attacks. When is Hollywood going to produce THAT blockbuster horror film?


27. Attack of the Zombie Roaches

Here’s another cool plot idea for Hollywood’s gaggle of horror movie producers – the tropical jewel wasp injects a venom into cockroaches that disables their insect version of free will, turning them into roach-zombies!


28. Mining for Golden Mushrooms

An Italian father and son – aided by their truffle-sniffing dog – unearthed a 3.3 pound truffle in Tuscany in 2007. Truffles are actually MORE valuable than gold, going for thousands of dollars an ounce. The Italian recordholder was expected to go for more than $200,000.


29. A Spice So Hot It Will Make a Ghost of You

The name of this chile pepper translates to “Ghost Chile” and it’s the world’s hottest chile thus discovered on the planet. The hottest jalapeno peppers rate 10,000 SHUs (Scoville Heat Units), and those bright orange habaneros can hit 100,000 SHU. The second hottest Red Savina is only half as hot as the ghosts – which weigh in at more than a million SHUs! Children, don’t try to eat these at home…


30. Accident as the Mother of Invention

The kitchen appliance staple known as the Microwave Oven was invented after a researcher happened to walk by a high-powered radar tube one day and a chocolate bar in his pocket melted.

The Entire Series:

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21-30 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
31-40 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
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In this second installment of weird science facts, I’ll repeat that none of the items in this series are in a particular order of weirdness. Readers are encouraged to offer their favorites in the comments, so that in the end some sort of weird-o-meter ranking applies!

Now let’s get on with the show…

11. If Only We Could Plug Into It!

A cloud to ground bolt of lightning carries between 100 million and 1 billion volts. It can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit – 3-4 times hotter than the surface of the sun!


12. Patching That Ever-Growing Hole

There are lightning strikes somewhere on earth 100 times a second. And every time lightning strikes, it generates Ozone gas. This strengthens the Ozone Layer in the upper atmosphere – you know, the one with the big hole that heightens our need for sunscreen.



13. If It Floats, It Must Be a Witch

The density of the planet Saturn is lower than water, so if you could put it in the ocean it would float!


14. Yet Despite All That Water…

Our own planet Earth is the densest in our entire solar system. It would definitely sink.


15. How Not to Build a Wooden Ship

The Black Ironwood tree (Olea laurifolia) has wood so dense that it can’t float on water.


16. How to Build a Ship of Rock

So, instead of black ironwood, how about volcanic pumice? It’s less dense than water, so it can float.


17. That’s Heavy, Man!

If a piece of a neutron star the size of a dime landed on earth, it would weigh about 100 million tons.


18. Bad Choice for Campfire Wood

The bark of the giant redwood tree is fireproof. In fact, redwoods depend on fire to clear room for their growth, and to enrich the forest soil for seeds to sprout.


19. How to Reach Escape Velocity Without Explosives

The acceleration rate of a flea jumping off a dog is 20 times the acceleration of the space shuttle during launch! Can JPL reverse engineer that?


20. What Did He Say?

Radio waves travel so much faster than sound waves that a person listening to a campaign speech by radio broadcast can hear the words 18,000 kilometers away before a person sitting at the back of the convention hall where the politician is speaking!


Stay tuned for part 3 (units 21-30), and don’t forget to vote for your faves!

The Entire Series:

1-10 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
11-20 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
21-30 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
31-40 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities
41-50 of 50 Weird Science Tidbits & Oddities