June 26th, 2012Top StoryChilling Look Into Future Reveals Polygamy, Mass Deportation of Whites, Nuclear War, Moon ColonyBy Max Read
Weber, who's previously predicted that there will be potholes on the streets of La Jolla in 2050 unless something is done, takes to the pages of the La Jolla Light to craft a gripping, pulse-pounding look at a future beyond anyone's control:
Do they not have phones on the Moon Colony? [La Jolla Light via the word unheard] |
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June 26th, 2012Top StoryHow Exactly Could a Squid 'Inseminate' Your Mouth?By Danna Staaf
Top image: National Geographic/Brian Skerry. Have you heard the one about the squid sperm that stung a woman in the mouth? A quick recap: while eating a parboiled squid, a Korean woman felt pain in her mouth. She went to the hospital, where the doctors extracted twelve squid spermatophores-packages of sperm-from her tongue, cheek, and gums. Ew! Also, ouch! But this poor woman was not the first victim of "oral stinging by squid spermatophores." No fewer than sixteen such cases have been documented in medical literature. However, this was the first case in which the squid was not consumed raw, but parboiled. Are squid spermatophores really so indestructible as to survive cooking? Probably not. As squid spermatophore researcher José Eduardo Marian of the University of São Paulo points out, the whole squid spent just a few seconds in boiling water. Spermatophores reside in a sac inside the squid's body cavity, or mantle-which might have been open to the water, or might have been tightly closed by the animal's muscles. '"Certainly the temperature was high," he tells us, "but we do not know if there was enough time for the spermatophores to contact the water." Of course, squid spermatophores aren't meant to be parboiled and eaten. Their purpose is to inseminate a female squid and make baby squid. But as bizarre as these cases of oral stinging are, Marian has actually been able to use one of them to gain a better understanding of the normal functioning of the world's most complicated sperm delivery vehicle. In a paper just published in the journal Zoomorphology on an earlier case of oral stinging, Marian explains that spermatophores-of which a male squid can produce hundreds-function "autonomously and extra-corporeally." That means they're totally self-contained machines. They don't need any input from a male squid, and, because they work normally in human mouths, apparently they don't need any input from a female squid either.
Scientists once thought that spermatophores just glued themselves to skin with the cement body. A few exceptional species, such as the giant squid, were found to have "deep implantation" — sperm masses injected far into the skin and muscle. It was easy to assume that in these cases, the spermatophores had been dropped into a wound that had already been creating by biting or scratching — or even forced under the skin by a hydraulic penis (yes, that was a real scientific hypothesis). But in 2007, researchers Henk-Jan Hoving and Vladimir Laptikhovsky proved that spermatophores can actually implant themselves. And then Marian made an even more sweeping claim. In a 2012 article in the Journal of Morphology, he suggested that "tissue scarification" is intrinsic to the action of all squid spermatophores. In other words, they will all cut you. The only variable is the depth of the wound. But how do they cut you? Observe this vivid film of Marian's: Okay, that's freaky as all get out! Let's break it down into a tidy four-step process: First the spermatophore cap must be pulled off. In the video, it's done with tweezers; in a diner's mouth, it could be done by chewing. During natural mating, the male squid might rupture the cap himself as he passes spermatophores to his beloved. Once the cap is broken, the ejaculatory apparatus pops right out. In the second step, the apparatus everts itself, pulling the sperm mass along with it. When it contacts a female squid (or human mouth), tiny caltrop-like accessories called stellate particles help it to grab on and dig in. Implantation occurs as the apparatus continues to evert, pulling away old particles and the skin cells to which they're attached. Third, the cement body gets in on the action with a veritable arsenal of weaponry: a sharp tip, more stellate particles, and a super-sticky adhesive. The spermatophore is well and truly attached. The fourth and final step completes the transformation of a spermatophore into a spermatangium, a sperm mass attached to a female squid (or human mouth). The empty case floats away and some sperm begin to swim around freely. Others may remain in the spermatangium for days, awaiting the female's pleasure. Now the real question: Why? Are male squid sadistic punks? Of course not! Spermatophores are evolution's answer to the problem of turbulent ocean sex. When waves and currents buffet you and your sweetheart, how can you keep your sperm from being whisked away, before it can do its job? Not to mention the fact that competing male squid might be enhancing the turbulence, using jets of water to try to flush your sperm out of the picture. The incredibly fancy spermatophore is simply a necessary tool for male squid to ensure the propagation of their genes. Unfortunately for at least sixteen hopeful suitors, human mouths are an evolutionary dead end. |
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June 26th, 2012Top StoryThe Last Mazda Wankel Engine Has Been BuiltBy Jason Torchinsky
The Wankel motor is one of those things that, for all its issues, was just too pure and beautiful for engineers to ignore. With far fewer parts than a regular reciprocating piston engine and a visually elegant design, it's no wonder Mazda kept with it. For a given displacement, it produces far more power than a given piston engine, at a much smaller size and weight. It can rev faster and is inherently smooth, since the motive force is rotational from start to finish— not the back-and-forth hopping of a piston engine. The down side is that Wankels are always a bit more fuel-gluttonous than a piston engine, and almost always have dirtier exhaust. Poor fuel economy and more polluting are pretty much the only strikes you need against you in our modern age, so the mainstream Wankel is going away. Felix Wankel was a gifted and largely self-taught engineer. The fundamental concept behind the rotary engine came to him quite early, as he is reported to have told friends at the age of 17 he would build a new kind of car with "a new type of engine, half turbine, half reciprocating. It is my invention!" I think I remember saying similar things at 17, but replace "turbine" and "reciprocating" with "boobs" and "magic".
Wankel's past was checkered, with periods in Hitler Youth and the Nazi party, though he was forced out in 1932. After his first patent in 1929 for the engine, it wasn't until after WWII that development started in earnest, thanks to a development deal with NSU in 1951. In 1957, an NSU engineer built the first working Wankel motor without Wankel knowing, which caused him to comment "you have turned my race horse into a plow mare." Like a typical gearhead, I'm sure Wankel was imaging a powerful racing motor instead of the practical lump made by NSU. The NSU Spider was the first production Wankel-engined car, in 1964. A pretty little rear-engined roadster, it was sort of like the VW Type III convertible that was never made, with its under-trunk-floor engine position and two luggage compartments. Later NSU created the legendary Ro80, a beautiful rotary-engined sedan that looked 20+ years ahead of its time. Sadly, the Wankel proved to be the achilles heel of the car, with issues with rotor-tip sealing causing some engines to fail as early as 30,000 miles. Attempts from the Wankel's homeland were nothing compared with the engine's longest and greatest patron, Mazda. Starting with the lovely Cosmo back in 1967 (which had the first two-rotor Wankel) and ending this year with the advanced Renesis engine in the RX-8, Mazda has built cars (and trucks) with rotary engines for 45 years, and in that time managed to work out most of the major sealing and other issues. The final version of Mazda's rotary, the Renesis, made 238 HP out of 1.3 liters— very impressive. Less impressive is its fuel consumption and emissions, the latter being the final, shiny coffin nail, as the engine failed to pass the Euro 5 emissions tests. Mazda did release a limited run of a hydrogen-based rotary engine, but future development seems unlikely. It's not totally gone, though. The engine's just too elegant and simple to disappear entirely, and is finding strange and novel niches in which to survive. Like seat belts. The seat belt emergency pretensioner system in some Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen is actually a tiny Wankel motor driven by an explosive charge. I need to comb the junkyards and see if I can find one of those. Here's the patent on that. Wankels may also stick around in certain niche markets, like for snowmobiles, since when they fail it's more gradual, and some power may still be generated, for a time. This is unlike piston engines, who may throw a rod and be done with it in a horrific moment of smoke and oil. For snowmobiles, this is a big deal, since breaking down can mean much more than an annoying afternoon. Much more as in lost noses and fingers to frostbite or determined wolves. UAVs are also experimenting with small Wankels, since their simplicity and durability are big advantages for robot aircraft. So, the mainstream Wankel is finished. But before you pour that entire container of 5W-30 on your white shag rug to honor a fallen friend, save a little, as a token of hope for the Children of Felix, wherever they may end up. (Sources: Wikipedia, Mazda) |
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![Dead <em>New York Times</em> Reporter Anthony Shadid Allegedly Told His Wife: "The <em>Times</em> Killed Me" [UPDATE]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17qvwf89uk85tjpg/xsmall.jpg "Dead <em>New York Times</em> Reporter Anthony Shadid Allegedly Told His Wife: \"The <em>Times</em> Killed Me\" [UPDATE]")
