Author Archives: curiouscat

Homing Pigeons May Use Low Frequency Sound Maps To Locate Home

Mystery of Lost Homing Pigeons Finally Solved

Prior research had shown that birds hear incredibly low-frequency sound waves of about 0.1 Hertz, or a tenth of a cycle per second. These infrasound waves may emanate from in the ocean and create tiny disturbances in the atmosphere. Hagstrum began to think the birds used infrasound for navigation.
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on the odd day when the birds reached home from Jersey Hill without problems, the infrasound traveled between the two locations. At the other locations where pigeons headed off in the wrong direction, he showed that wind currents channeled the infrasound waves in that direction.

The explanation may solve other mysteries about pigeons — for instance, why they circle around before heading off in one direction. Because the sound waves are so long, but the birds’ ear canals are tiny, they need to circle to reconstruct the wave and figure out which way they are oriented, he said.

More interesting scientific inquiry. It is very interesting to learn what scientists are learning about our world – even when the conclusions are still preliminary and may be adjusted or refuted.

Chart of Wind Power Generation Capacity Globally 2005-2012

Chart of installed wind energy capacity by country from 2005 to 2012 by Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog using data from the Wind Energy Association. 2012 data is for the capacity on June 30, 2012. Chart may be used with attribution as specified.

Wind power generation capacity continues to grow faster than the increase in electricity use. The rate of growth has slowed a bit overall, though China’s growth continues to be large.

From 2005-2012 globally wind power generation capacity increased 330%; lead by China with an increase of 5,250%. Of the leading countries Germany grew the least – just 63%. The percent of global capacity of the 8 countries listed in the chart (the 8 countries with the highest capacity in 2012) has been amazingly consistent given the huge growth: from a low of 79% in 2006 to a high of 82.4% in 2011 (2012 was 82%).

Global growth in wind energy capacity was 66% in 2008-2010. In 2010 to 2012 the increase was 28%. The second period is just 18 months (since the 2012 data is for the first half of the year). Extending the current (2010-2012) rate to the end of 2012 would yield an increase of 37%, which still shows there has been a slowdown compared to the 66% rate in the previous 2 year period. The decrease in government subsidies and incentives is responsible for the slowing of added capacity, though obviously the growth is still strong.

From 2005 to 2012 China’s share of global wind energy capacity increased from 2% to 27%, the USA 15% to 20%, Germany fell from 31% to 12%, India fell from 7.5% to 6.8% (while growing capacity 292%).

Hydro power is by far the largest source of green electricity generation (approximately 5 times the capacity of wind power – but hydro capacity is growing very slowly). And installed solar electricity generation capacity is about 1/5 of wind power capacity.

No Surprise: Engineering Graduates Continue to Reign Supreme

If you want a high paying job upon graduation choosing to major in engineering is a great choice, for those that enjoy it and are able to meet the challenge. This data is for the USA. My guess is that similar results would show up in most locations, but I am just guessing, I don’t have any specific data.

The top average starting salary paid USA under-graduates by major:

major		2012 salary
computer engineering		$70,400
chemical engineering		$66,400
computer science		$64,400
aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical engineering		$64,000
mechanical engineering		$62,900
electrical/electronics and communications engineering		$62,300
civil engineering		$57,600
finance		$57,300
construction science/management		$56,600
information sciences and systems		$56,100

NACE salary survey

This continues a long term trend of engineering major being rewarded: Engineering Majors Hold 8 of Top 10 Highest Paid Majors – Engineering Again Dominates The Highest Paying College Degree Programs – S&P 500 CEO’s: Engineers Stay at the Top – Career Prospect for Engineers Continues to Look Positive.

Overall starting salaries were up 3.4% to $44,455. Engineering major starting salaries increased 3.9%, to $61,913. Computer science is the 2nd highest paid broad major category at $59,221 (up 3.8%). Next is business at $53,900 (up 4.2%). At the bottom of both average pay and increase was humanities and social sciences with $36,988, up 2%.

The highest-paying industry for Class of 2012 graduates in this report is mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; employers in this industry offered starting salaries that averaged $59,400.

The mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry also has the top-paying occupations for Class of 2012 graduates. Mechanical engineering graduates hired as petroleum, mining, and geological engineers received starting salaries that averaged $77,500.

As I have said before, I believe it is foolish to pursue a career in a field that doesn’t interest you. Pay doesn’t make up for doing something you don’t enjoy. But if you enjoy several things somewhat equally pay is worth paying attention to.

Many Great, Free, Online Courses in Science, Engineering and More

The video, above, provides an overview of an online course, Calculus: Single Variable, via coursera from the University of Pennsylvania. This course provides a brisk, entertaining treatment of differential and integral calculus, with an emphasis on conceptual understanding and applications to the engineering, physical, and social sciences.

Robert Ghrist is the Andrea Mitchell University Professor of Mathematics and Electrical & Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Coursera offers many courses in all sorts of disciplines including: Introduction to Genetics and Evolution (Duke), Scientific Computing (University of Washington), Principles of Economics for Scientists (California Institute of Technology), Game Theory (Stanford University and The University of British Columbia), A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior (Dan Ariely, Duke University), The Modern World: Global History since 1760 (University of Virginia), Microeconomics for Managers (University of California, Irvine), Data Analysis (Johns Hopkins University), Fundamentals of Human Nutrition (University of Florida), Algorithms, Part I (Princeton University), The Ancient Greeks (Wesleyan University), Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life (University of Edinburgh) and Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression, (University of Melbourne).

All the classes are free. These courses, and many more, are extremely appealing. I signed up for 2. I would be interested in signing up for much more but I worry about having the time to commit to keeping up with the coursework. I hope the first two go well and I can sign up for more in the future.

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2012 Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education

I have posted on the Olin College of Engineering several times. I really like what they are doing. Innovation in engineering education will pay high dividends, especially providing a focus on the nexus of engineering and entrepreneurship.

Olin College of Engineering’s three founding academic leaders, Richard Miller, David Kerns and Sherra Kerns, received one of engineering’s highest honors – the Bernard M. Gordon Prize. The $500,000 prize is awarded by the National Academy of Engineering to recognize innovation in engineering and technological education.

“This team of educational innovators has had a profound impact on society by improving the way we educate the next generation of engineers,” said NAE President Charles M. Vest. “Olin serves as an exemplar for the rest of the engineering world and a collaborative agent for change.”

Armed with one of the largest gifts in the history of higher education, the F. W. Olin Foundation recruited Richard Miller as Olin’s first employee in 1999. To help build the college from scratch, Miller recruited the founding academic leadership team including David Kerns and Sherra Kerns later that year. Together, they developed a vision for an engaging approach to teaching engineering and a new culture of learning that is intensely student centered.

To insure a fresh approach, Olin does not offer tenure, has no academic departments, offers only degrees in engineering, and provides large merit-based scholarships to all admitted students.

Perhaps the most important contribution the Gordon prize recipients made was the creation of a profoundly inclusive and collaborative process of experimentation and decision-making involving students in every aspect of the invention of the institution. This is illustrated by the decision in 2001 to recruit 30 young students to spend a year as “partners” in residence with the faculty in conducting many experiments together before establishing the first curriculum.

“As entrepreneurs, we learn to listen to our customers. Olin’s innovative approach was co-created by enterprising faculty, inspired students, and a dedicated staff, as well as collecting and integrating innovative approaches from more than 30 other institutions worldwide,” said David Kerns, current faculty at Olin and founding provost and chief academic officer of the college from 1999 to 2007.

With the extensive help of a collaborative team of faculty and students, and the guidance of the late Dr. Michael Moody, a novel academic program emerged. Some of the features include a nearly gender-balanced community, a strong focus on design process throughout all four years, extensive use of team projects, a requirement that students repeatedly “stand and deliver” to the entire community at the end of every semester, an experiential requirement in business and entrepreneurship, a capstone requirement outside of engineering, and a year-long corporate-sponsored design project in which corporations pay $50,000 per project.

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Quick Webcast With a Few Interesting Science Facts

Interesting facts: I didn’t know that we require 13 minerals or that alcoholic beverages contain amounts of all the minerals we need. An amazing fact: the average person walks the equivalent of 3 times around the earth in a lifetime.

The minerals we need (and the recommended daily amount)

Calcium – 1,200 mg
Magnesium – 320 mg
Phosphorus – 700 mg
Potassium – 4.7 g
Sodium – ?
Chloride?

trace amounts needed
Cobalt (as Vitamin B12) – 2.4 mcg
Copper – 1,156 mcg
Iodine – 150 mcg
Iron – 8 mg
Manganese – 1.8 mg
Niacin – 14 mg
Riboflavin – 1.1 mg
Selenium – 55 mcg
Thiamin – 1.1 mg
Zinc – 8 mg
Chromium?, Molybdenum? Fluoride?

Frankly, in my quick looks around the internet I am not sure what they base the claim we need only 13 minerals on. It seems we need trace amounts of more minerals – did they just ignore those not in alcohol?

I couldn’t find good sources confirming just what minerals are needed. Many list some minerals but don’t list others. I am not really sure what the answer is. I am glad I seem to somehow get whatever I need just by eating somewhat healthfully. It is pretty cool we get these things that way. Of course if we didn’t our ancestors wouldn’t have survived to create descendants that finally became us – as they had a much harder time than me (who can just go the restaurant and grocery store and get all sorts of wonderful food).

How Corn Syrup Might Be Making Us Fat

How Corn Syrup Might Be Making Us Hungry–and Fat by Katherine Harmon

…Glucose lowered the activity of the hypothalamus but fructose actually prompted a small spike to this area. As might be expected from these results, the glucose drink alone increased the feelings of fullness reported by volunteers, which indicates that they would be less likely to consume more calories after having something sweetened with glucose than something sweetened with more fructose.

Fructose and glucose look similar molecularly, but fructose is metabolized differently by the body and prompts the body to secrete less insulin than does glucose (insulin plays a role in telling the body to feel full and in dulling the reward the body gets from food). Fructose also fails to reduce the amount of circulating ghrelin (a hunger-signaling hormone) as much as glucose does. (Animal studies have shown that fructose can, indeed, cross the blood-brain barrier and be metabolized in the hypothalamus.) Previous studies have shown that this effect was pronounced in animal models…

Most of the science indicates calories consumed is by far the dominant factor in weight gain. Different foods with the same calories can affect how hungry you feel. Thus the biggest factor in reducing weight gain seems to be reducing calories and one way to help is to eat food that leaves you feeling full and avoid foods that don’t.

The science is not completely clear though on whether certain diets can have a significant affect above and beyond calorie levels. I am skeptical of such claims, however. There are concerns beyond calories for healthy eating – getting a well balanced diet is important.

Healthy physical activity is also important. Burning off calories with exercise allows more consumption without weight gain. And exercise is important for health not just to avoid gaining weight.

System for Approving New Medical Options Needs Improvement

Something Doesn’t Add Up

Not only did the team find that evidence for Infuse’s benefits over existing alternatives for most patients was questionable; they also discovered in a broad array of published research that risks of complications (including cancer, male sterility and other serious side effects) appeared to be 10 to 50 times higher than 13 industry-sponsored studies had shown. And they learned that authors of the early studies that found no complications had been paid between $1 million and $23 million annually by the company for consulting, royalties and other compensation. Carragee, MD ’82, estimates Medtronic has sold several billion dollars’ worth of Infuse for uses both approved and “off label.”
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Without a rigorous, data-driven context, medicine’s expensive traditions and hunch-based treatments threaten to bankrupt us. “People say that we shouldn’t delay science; people are dying; we should get new treatments out there. I do not feel the pressure to do that until we have solid evidence,” Ioannidis asserts. “The resources many procedures draw are enormous.” And that leaves insufficient funds for the prevention plans and treatments we know actually work.

I have written about the problems with our health care research system several times. The existing system is in need of improvement and is made much worse by the general state of the broken health care system in the USA. Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis, the focus of the article, is doing fantastic work in this area.

Make Crosswalks More Visible

Good simple idea. And then executed well – for nighttime at least. Crosswalk lights up when in use giving drivers a more visible clue to stop.

Circumhorizontal Arcs – Fire Rainbows – Cloud Rainbows

Fire Rainbow, Johor Bahru by John Hunter

Yesterday afternoon I spotted this odd, colorful, spectrum seemingly in a cloud in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The colors are similar to a rainbow but the prism effect takes on a bit different form than a rainbow as I learned with a bit of searching online. I added a short post to this blog, about the phenomenon a few years ago.

Johor Bahru under a large cloud which is topped with a fire rainbow.

A circumhorizontal arc is an optical phenomenon – an ice-halo formed by plate-shaped ice crystals in high level cirrus clouds. They are also known as “fire rainbows,” if the cloud is at the right angle to the sun, the crystals will refract the sunlight just as when rainbow is created.

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