Bonobo’s Using Language?

bonobo with a symbols board she uses to communicate

A Voluble Visit with Two Talking Apes by Jon Hamilton, NPR.

But linguists still weren’t satisfied. They pointed out that humans invent metaphors and figures of speech when literal meanings aren’t enough.

Savage-Rumbaugh says the bonobos pass this test, as well. For example, Panbanisha once used the symbol for “monster” when referring to a visitor who misbehaved.

Bill Fields, a researcher at the Great Ape Trust and a close friend of Kanzi, recalls another time when Kanzi used language creatively.

Fields says it was during a visit by a Swedish scientist named Par Segerdahl. Kanzi knew that Segerdahl was bringing bread. But Kanzi’s keyboard had no symbol for Segerdahl the scientist. So he got the attention of Savage-Rumbaugh’s sister, Liz, and began pointing to the symbols for “bread” and “pear,” the fruit.

“Liz got it immediately,” Fields says. “She says, ‘What do you mean Kanzi? Are you talking about Par or pears to eat?’ And he pointed over to Par.”

The site also includes more photos and video and audio webcasts.

Cash Awards for Engineering Innovation

This article discusses the recent explosion of cash awards to encourage development of engineering solutions. Want innovation? Offer cash (page deleted by external site – poor usability):

In the early 20th century, prizes in the aviation and automotive worlds were common. Sometimes they were awarded for incremental progress, other times for breakthroughs like the Lindbergh flight.

Open Access Article Advantage

Citation Advantage of Open Access Articles by Gunther Eysenbach:

While more work remains to be done to evaluate citation patterns over longer periods of time and in different fields and journals, this study provides evidence and new arguments for scientists and granting agencies to invest money into article processing fees to cover the costs of OA publishing. It also provides an incentive for publishers seeking to increase their impact factor to offer an OA option.

I agree with all of that. More study should be done. And scientists and sponsors that want the papers they wrote, or funded, to have maximum influence should invest in OA publishing now.

See previous: Britain’s Royal Society Experiments with Open Access

Classic Botanical Illustrations Presented Poorly

Classic Botanical Illustration, A Curious Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell. The British Museum has made this fantastic material available online. Unfortunately they have done it with an absolutely horrible way. So you can experience “turning pages” they force you to download extra software.

Then you get to try turning pages in the book. Go ahead and try, its like an arcade game trying to figure out exactly how the mouse has to move to actually let you get to the next page. Ok, I exaggerate a bit but I can tell you this – let 10 average web users try to view this book and they will have great difficulty. Museums should not be so out of touch with the public that they produce such fancy unusable stuff. There is no reason this material shouldn’t be presented in a very user friendly way. Nothing of value is gained for all the pain they inflict with their unusable format.

They really need to put whoever approved this setup back in some part of the British Museum that doesn’t have to keep up with technology. Then they should either hire someone from Jakob Neilsen, Jared Spool or 37 Signals organizations to run their online activities or get the name of someone from those organizations that can help them. Because they have great content to share and they need to do much better than this.

Frankly it isn’t really worth going through all that unless you really really want to see the book or you have already learned how to use poorly designed interfaces. You also need to have permission and the ability to download a plugin to your computer. The bozos also don’t even provide a way to link to the book. Go ahead and go to the British Museum site and look around and you will find it eventually.

The Future of Science

Speculation on the Future of Science, summary of a Kevin Kelly speech by Stewart Brand (co-founder and co-chairman of The Long Now Foundation. He is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog).

The articles notes steps along the path to the current state of science, including:

1590 — Controlled experiment (Roger Bacon)
1609 — Telescopes and microscopes
1665 — Repeatability (Robert Boyle)
1665 — Scholarly journals
1687 — Hypothesis/prediction (Isaac Newton)
1926 — Randomized design (Ronald Fisher)
1950 — Double blind experiment

Then he discusses 5 ideas for the next 100 years.

1) “There will be more change in the next 50 years of science than in the last 400 years.”
2) “This will be a century of biology.”
3) “Computers will keep leading to new ways of science.”
4) “New ways of knowing will emerge.”
5) “Science will create new levels of meaning.”

It is wonderful to see such interesting ideas online and easily accessible to over one billion people. Yes there is a great deal of worthless stuff avoid (and some worthless stuff to enjoy) to find all the wonderful stuff. But the amount of wonderful science and engineering material available online provides great hope for what the future will bring.

update: see Kevin Kelly present at Google – more Google Engineering talks.

Singapore Supporting Science Researchers

Grooming research talent seen as crucial for Singapore by Jeana Wong

And to attract overseas talents, it will need to build world-class facilities, attract skilled mentors and focus its research spending on clear areas in which it has a strong hold.

He says it is not unusual for governments to develop infrastructure and talent in the basic sciences at the tertiary education level.

Singapore reportedly is even looking at proposing a grand management plan for an Indonesian island.
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China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan

China challenges dominance of USA, Europe and Japan in scientific research according to UNESCO Science Report 2005

The report says that “the most remarkable trend is to be found in Asia, where gross expenditure on R&D has grown from a world share of 27.9% in 1997 to 31.5% in 2002”.

This hardly seems impressive compared to the growth of Google say. However the amounts of money for global R&D are huge and so changes as less dramatic than other areas. Still this is significant and seems likely to continue to move in this direction.
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The Brine Lake Beneath the Sea

octopus in the brine lake

This stunning octopod, Benthoctopus sp., seemed quite interested in ALVIN’s port manipulator arm. Image courtesy of Bruce Strickrott, Expedition to the Deep Slope – larger photo.

The Brine Lake by Harry Roberts:

As we took the sub into the brine lake, the pressure wave from the sub’s movement across the lake created waves on the interface between the brine and the overlying normal-density sea water.

We watched these waves break on the “beach” like storm waves approaching and breaking on a sandy coastline.

NOAA researchers include a video from the adventure. Also read more about the Expedition to the Deep Slope, in the Gulf of Mexico.

50 Top Science Blogs

50 Top Science Blogs (“by working scientist as far as they can tell”) based on technorati rank from Nature. Including:

Missing science blogs include: