Making Science More Better For You on 02/13/08

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Woman, 89, uses ax to smash door glass after being locked out (The Obscure Store)

"Marketers salivate over lickable ads" (WSJ)


We have a great deal of respect for all the great metaphysical traditions, economics in particular. The Nobel people think these guys are doing dynamite work.

Why Youth Hostel Showers Are Like The Stock Market: Variety Provides Stabililty

ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2008) — Diversity keeps you warm. At least that is true while you're having a shower in youth hostels. If you like, this sums up the research project just published by scientists from the Universities of Fribourg and Bonn. Their result is not as trivial as it sounds. Ultimately it shows that heterogeneity provides stability, whether this is in a shower, in power grids or even on the stock market.

Having a shower in a youth hostel can be risky when there is not enough hot water for everybody. If only one visitor turns up the hot tap during the early morning shower, everyone else is threatened by an icy gush of water. This unwanted form of hydrotherapy is particularly likely to happen when all the shower taps have the same possible settings, in other words if cold and hot water can be adjusted to exactly the same amount in all showers. But if the water taps in each shower have their individual quirks, the risk of extreme fluctuations is less.

At least that is what the Bonn economist Christina Matzke and her colleague Damien Challet, a physicist at the University of Fribourg, say. They modelled the temperature profile of showers in a youth hostel on the computer. 'All in all, heterogeneous taps offer advantages -- they prevent the average shower temperature of all guests from suddenly dropping or rising,' Christina Matzke explains. 'From the perspective of the individual they also have disadvantages, as it's more difficult for each person to set the right temperature.'

The problem sounds comical, but in principle it can be applied to all situations where people compete for a scarce resource, whether this is hot water, electricity or equities. One thing is always true, the more individualistic the behaviour of those involved in the market is, the more stable the whole system becomes. Put simply, the only reason why our electricity grid does not break down is that not all the inhabitants of Germany switch on the tumble drier at the same time. And if all shareholders made strictly rational decisions on their investments, there would probably be a lot more turbulence on the stock market.

The result is also significant from a theoretical point of view. 'We show what different results economic models can produce, depending on whether they are based on homogeneous or heterogeneous behaviour,' Christina Matzke emphasises. Accordingly, it is important to account for differences in individual behaviour when making forecasts. Although it sounds obvious, economists long ignored this insight. For decades their models were dominated by 'homo economicus', an imaginary standardised market investor who always made rational decisions rather than deciding according to individual criteria.


From this thing that look like a rummage sale ashtray we can deduce that this creature was 25 feet long. At least it was in the afternoon.

A Baby Dinosaur, 72 Million Years Old
By NED POTTER/ABC News

The Mexican state of Coahuila, due west of the southern tip of Texas, is arid country today. But 72 million years ago it was a tropical paradise, warm and moist, close to a vast sea that divided what eventually became North America.

Now, scientists report they have found a new dinosaur species there -- one of the very few ever discovered in Mexico.

It was apparently a duck-billed plant eater, probably about 25 feet long. Scientists hesitate to guess too much about it, but they say they can tell from its bone structure that it was probably not fully grown. An adult of the species could have been 10 feet longer.

"Close your eyes," said Terry Gates, a paleontologist at the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah. "I want you to imagine yourself on a beach in Puerto Vallarta. Nice day, with the sun and the ocean -- and then, when you open your eyes, you're suddenly looking at this thing."

Gates was on the team, from Mexico, Canada and the United States, that dug up the fossil and reconstructed it. The work took more than 10 years, partly because the skull was shattered -- and buried under 12 feet of rock and dirt. They called the new species Velafrons coahuilensis.

It is different from almost any other duck-billed dinosaur ever found. The reassembled skull has a large hollow bulge on top, through which it probably breathed.

"The really cool thing about these duck-billed dinosaurs is that their nasal passages probably allowed them to make some kind of music," said Gates. "We don't know exactly what kinds of sounds they would make, but it is likely to be somewhat like what trumpeters make."

Gates said it is likely that such an ornate crest on top of the head might have been useful in attracting a mate. Beauty, even in the late cretaceous period, was in the eye of the beholder.

The desert terrain of northern Mexico has made dinosaur hunting difficult there. For lack of rain, there is little erosion, so buried fossils are rarely exposed over time.

Velafrons coahuilensis was found, like many fossils, by accident. Parts of it protruded from the earth on the outskirts of the small Mexican town of Rincon, Colo.

Volunteers from the area tried for a decade to dig it up. Not until 2002 did scientists from Utah mount an expedition. They saw how difficult the dig would be, and came back with a jackhammer.

It took two years, back at the lab, for the skull to be reconstructed. They also found fossils of turtles, fish and lizards buried in the area around the dinosaur skeleton.

What killed the great animal? That question is as mysterious as the many about how it lived.

Scientists wonder about the geography of the area. Central America would not have formed yet 72 million years ago, so Mexico would have been the southern end of the continent. It is quite possible, say the researchers, that the young dinosaur was caught in a prehistoric hurricane.

"This discovery is part of a new window that's being opened up," said paleontologist Scott Sampson of the Utah Museum. "It won't be the only Mexican dinosaur for long."

"The really cool thing about these duck-billed dinosaurs is that their nasal passages probably allowed them to make some kind of music," said Gates. "We don't know exactly what kinds of sounds they would make, but it is likely to be somewhat like what trumpeters make." Were they more like Miles or Dizzy?”