Monday Science Links

This week's science:

• Jessica at Magma Cum Laude posts on those Bosnian "pyramids": I've noticed a few stories recently about Sam Osmanagich, a Bosnian archaeology enthusiast who claims to have discovered several 12,000-year-old 'pyramids' in the Balkans. The whole 'pyramid' saga mainly concerns a case of mistaken identity - the pyramids are just hills - and Indiana-Jones-style archaeology (by which I mean not very methodical, scientific or objective) on Osmanagich's part...They're really not hoaxes or mysteries, though - just badly misidentified. I minored in archaeology in college, and it really makes me cringe to see something so pseudo-scientific be accepted by so many people, even becoming a point of national pride in Bosnia.


• Carl Zimmer at The Loom blogs on the origin of giants: Whales are the biggest animals to ever live. Blue whales can get up to 160 tons–about as heavy as 2000 grown men. They are trailed in the rankings by the fin whale and a few other related species of whales. There are no lobsters in their ranks, no clams, no rodents. All these giants feed in much the same way. They swallow up water and filter it through fronds in their mouths called baleen. Most of the food they eat is tiny stuff, like krill and other small invertebrates. So some scientists have wondered how big whales manage to put enough tiny bits of food in their bodies to get to such huge sizes. Unfortunately, whales dine out of sight, so scientists have had to tackle those questions with indirect clues.


• Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True looks at incipient speciation in black-capped warblers: So what does it mean? Well, it seems to show that in a very short period — only a few dozen blackcap generations — the gene pool of the birds has undergone some sundering, although that splittting is by no means complete. Moreover, this division has happened without any geographic barriers keeping the two types apart. Both overwintering groups breed in the same place, and the “barrier” leading to genetic difference was caused by a behavioral change in the birds themselves, a change that may be genetic. (The authors’ other papers, which I haven’t yet read, suggest that the two groups differ by a single gene affecting the direction of migration. I have trouble believing this!) This is a very interesting result, and was well worth publishing in Current Biology.


• Dave at Cognitive Daily blogs on the effect change blindness can have: You've seen optical illusions and videos that baffle the imagination. Yet most participants in psychology research studies aren't aware of the many ways the mind can be "tricked." One of the most dramatic tricks, which we've discussed several times, is the phenomenon of Change Blindness. An object can change right before your eyes, and you're likely not to notice. When you're made aware of the change, you find it hard to believe that you could have been so dense -- and you're not alone; nearly everyone falls for it. In several studies, a student or other unwitting recruit is being interviewed by an actor, who is then substituted for a completely different person, and the recruit is usually unsurprised by the change. But even though we don't overtly notice these major changes, perhaps it still affects us in some unconscious way.
  


• And finally, Calla at Cocktail Party Physics looks at 2012 and neutrinos: Last night I settled down into a cushy high-backed chair, got comfortable, turned off my brain and let my mouth hang open for three hours, while Hollywood spoon feed me a sweet gruel made of the worst dialogue, cheesiest moments and most unnecessary (but awesome) special effects they had to offer. I got to see a preview screening of 2012, the latest in a long line of terrible end-of-the world blockbusters. And you know what? Not that bad! Not nearly as bad as The Day After Tomorrow which was bad even as far as bad things go. But 2012 was pretty entertaining because it totally realized how ridiculous it was and then it featured some really amazing images.Let me say something kind of controversial: 2012 was not very scientifically accurate. I know. I realize that you probably just let out a very loud "Whaaaaaatttt??" and now people in your office are coming over to see what you are gaping about, and then you show them that sentence and they all lift their eyebrows at this controversial blog you are reading. But it is true. So I am not here to review the scientific accuracy of 2012. To do that would take up this entire blog plus a livejournal and even then I would not have enough room to explain all the ways in which 2012 is not even logically accurate (and I should point out that contrary to what the above trailer says, the Mayans were not even close to being the earliest human civilization. The Mayan culture peaked about 1350 years ago*). See? And if I took the time to point out all the inaccuracies then everyone would wonder why the hell I did that because who cares? It's a movie. It was fun. It was totally ridiculous and utilized every end-of-the-world-movie cliche that exists, but whatever. So I don't want to analyze the whole movie, but I thought I'd take a whack at the first four minutes.

Enjoy!