Mother Nature: nurturing caregiver, or stone-cold bitch?

I love the dichotomy we can find in nature. A pretty flower has thorns. A cute grizzly cub will one day grow into a flesh-craving, man-eating beast. And the predator can sometimes decide to cuddle with it's prey.

More images and story can be found here.

Cute, huh?

This is such a stark contrast to the violent predator-prey images I'm so accustomed to seeing [Link to very graphic image of predator-prey interaction]. Not so cute, but I have to admit, my eyes were fixed on the penguin longer than the antelope.

political views by age

Dream Job

Fans of '80s music, rejoice!

Retro-fitting your Ford F-150 to be a plug-in hybrid

Walking home the other day, I thought 'wouldn’t it be great if we could cheaply and easily boost fuel efficiency of big old trucks and SUVs by adding in a power-assist hybrid motor.' Once again, someone has beat me to the idea, and created a start-up company. For $60 000 USD the company HEVT will make your Ford F-150 a plug-in hybrid electric, boosting fuel efficiency to 5.7 L/100km (41 MPG) from the typical 14.7 L/100km (16 MPG), for the first 50 km (30 miles) which is what the average North American drives in a day. After that, the heavily modded pick-up truck should get 11.2 L/100km (21 MPG). I thought this price point seemed prohibitively expensive for most F-150 drivers. The big question is, how long does it take for this costly hybrid to pay off?

Assuming you drive the average 50 km/day, you will be saving 4.5 L in gas every day. At $1.30 CAN / L, that is a savings of nearly $6 daily. This means it would take 28 years to pay for this fuel economizing add-on (probably a lot sooner if you consider where gas prices are heading). But I have a feeling that F-150 owners drive their trucks more than 50 km/day…this is a utilitarian vehicle, built for doing work. A quick check on autotrader shows that indeed, most F-150 owners drive about 100 km/day. If we add on the extra savings of driving past the all-electric range of 50 km, we bring our savings up to $9.50 daily (the more you drive the more you save!). This brings the pay off time down to 17 years.

It seems the only reason that someone would pay $60 000 USD to make their pick-up truck a hybrid would be to simply reduce greenhouse gas emissions, since it is not an economically viable option at this price. However, HEVT is still a start-up company; the cost could be reduced after manufacturing is scaled up beyond a pilot program. More realistically, the price of gas will continue to increase and this retro-fit will almost definitely pay off much sooner.

Fuel efficiency for economists

One of the inhibiting factors to buying a fuel efficient car is the price tag. For drivers that would like to avoid burning fossil fuels to power their car, an electric vehicle may be an attractive option. However, the sporty, all-electric Tesla Roadster is prohibitively priced for the average person ($100,000 USD). Even the upcoming plug-in electric series-hybrid Chevrolet Volt, at half the price, is considered expensive. So, for the average Canadian, hybrids and small-displacement engines are the most realistic choice. Most provincial governments have tried to remove the high-cost barrier by offering rebates for fuel efficient cars. But I was curious about the initial cost of the car vs fuel efficiency...or, in other words, how much more would a "green" consumer pay for gas savings? Apparently, I was not the only one to have this idea, as it was published in the elite journal Science, very recently. So, I created a scatter-plot of vehicle cost vs fuel efficiency (in L/100km, which is arguably a better way to measure fuel efficiency than US MPG, but that is a whole different post). I spent an evening virtually building cars, via the manufacturer's (Canadian) website. I decided to price all vehicles as base-model, with automatic transmission and air-conditioning, as these are really the only extra features I care about on any car. Only compact or mid-size cars were included. This is the result:



The green line represents a subjective trend (not statistically verified) that excludes the hybrids. Any cars placed below this line are a good deal for economists. That is, they are very inexpensive when considering their fuel efficiency as an additional major cost. In contrast, cars above this line are blatant rip-offs. For example, the Mini Cooper, while very fuel efficient is incredibly expensive compared similar vehicles. I do realize it is a BMW, a high-end luxury vehicle designed for performance, not fuel efficiency; But some people might consider purchasing a Mini because it is far more esthetically pleasing than other options.

Not surprisingly, hybrid vehicles (Toyta Prius and Honda Civic) are the most fuel efficient. However, even with a $2000 CAN rebate, which is what the Ontario government currently offers for the Prius, the initial vehicle cost is still expensive. However, if you were to drive one these hybrids for the lifetime of the car (let's assume 300,000 km) and you are using 3 L less fuel per 100 km than the average compact car (5.5 L/100km vs 8.5 L/100km), and if fuel remains at $1.25/L (yeah, right) then you would save $11 250 CAN in fuel costs by driving a hybrid rather than another compact car. In this light, the hybrid is the obvious choice for economists.

Some surprising results: Volkswagen, legendary for its fuel efficiency is not very fuel efficient at all when compared with similar sized competitors. Also surprising, is the Honda Civic, a common choice among university and college students for its low base price seems to be over-priced for its fuel efficiency. The Smart ForTwo is a bit of an outlier, with great fuel efficiency but for a slightly more costly premium. However, for those who are concerned about safety as well as cost and fuel efficiency, the Smart ForTwo is far superior to other compacts. The big question of potential buyers; Is your safety worth the extra vehicle cost?

Perhaps most surprising is that Toyota and Hyundai compacts were beat out by the Pontiac Wave in terms of base cost and fuel efficiency. I'm shocked. A domestic car comes out on top of the list, when considering fuel efficiency and vehicle cost. I suppose this reflects the changing times due to the current pressures on car manufacturers, and a strong motivation for domestic companies to survive the competition of inexpensively produced foreign products.

I realize I might be missing some important data points on this graph. Let me know, and I will update accordingly.

Science meets Rap

80's rap is the only "real" rap

10 easy steps to create a shortcut key to Paste unformatted text in Microsoft Excel 2007

One thing that really bugs me about MS Office is the lack of shortcut keys, or ease of creating a shortcut key for any menu option. Here is a 10 step method for creating a shortcut key in Excel 2007, which avoids mouse-clicking, and instead uses “Ctrl + Shift + V” which keeps your hands on the keyboard and saves time. However, this method can be adapted to perform many functions in Excel 2007.



1) Go to the developer tab in excel. If the developer tab is not present, go to the office button, click excel options at the bottom right, and then under "popular" check the box that says "show developer tab in the ribbon"



2) Set up a new excel sheet, and type two cells with random numbers to copy, then a formula in a third cell (quick tip: easily sum up a column by hitting “Ctrl + =”)

3) Select the cell with the formula, and hit “Ctrl + C” to copy


4) In the developer tab, select "record macro"

5) Change the macro name to PasteValues. Choose your desired key combo...for me “Ctrl + Shift + V” and store macro in "personal macro workbook" and create a description if desired.

6) Click OK and you begin recording your macro: Since we already hit "Ctrl + C" in step 3, select any other empty cell, go to the home tab, click the arrow under "paste" and select "paste values"

7) Go back to the developer tab and select “stop recording macro”

8) Your macro is not quite perfect yet...it has recorded to always paste to that cell. To change this, click "macros" in the developer tab, and double click your macro "PERSONAL.XLSB!PasteValues". An error will appear and select "debug" from the options to open Visual Basic Editor.

9) Delete the line that says "select.cell"F5" but you will likely have a different cell than F5. Then click File > Close and Return.

Your macro should work perfectly now...try it out on a new formula: "Ctrl + C", select a different cell from when you recorded the macro, and then "Ctrl + Shift + V" to paste values

10) Finally, when you close excel, choose "yes" to save changes to PersonalWorkbook, otherwise you will have to go through this process again.

Coffee + Laptop = F#&%!

I spilled coffee on my laptop.

I was reading the latest headlines in J Exp Biol, when I carelessly reached for my coffee and it tipped over, spilling caffeinated bliss all over my laptop (Toshiba M50). It was one of those fancy Starbucks no-spill travel mugs, but somehow the inertia of the fall carried the coffee out of the sipping hole in a jet of destructive brownness.

I quickly shut-down by holding the power button for a couple seconds, and then flipped it over to drain the coffee and unplug the battery and power cable. Then I stood there, motionless for a good minute or two, contemplating my next mode of action as the coffee dripped from the keyboard and onto the infrequently swept floor.

I really hoped this was covered by the warranty, as ridiculous as that sounds. My brother, a devout mac enthusiast, was going to love this. I could already hear comments like "If you bought a mac, it would clean itself," or "the circuitry in macs actually repels liquids and prevents them from shorting out."

After letting the keyboard drain, and going over hopeless scenarios in my head, I carefully removed the hard drive while the laptop was still upside down. It was still dry; hoorah. At least I can save my data, which hadn't been backed-up since last week. Then I flipped the laptop back over, and slowly removed the keyboard. There was surprisingly little liquid underneath the keyboard. Only a few drops, and they were confined to a wonderfully designed plastic barrier, which was likely engineered with this sole purpose in mind.

I let it sit in front of a fan for the weekend to dry out. Visions of the dreaded BSOD, clouded my thoughts all weekend. When I finally powered it up on Monday, I was greeted by a friendly and familiar Windows startup screen, followed quickly by my desktop.

And everyone lived happily ever after. I even have a coffee scented keyboard now. But the letter "m" refuses to work. So I may end up running the keyboard through the dishwasher as a last resort.

UPDATE: I fixed the letter "m" by prying it off and cleaning with a damp q-tip. Bonus.

5 Reasons Why London (Ontario) Needs a Monorail

5) Biking is suicidal. There are very few dedicated bike paths on London’s streets. I don’t mean the curvy nature bike trails along the rivers and through parks. I mean major roads that serve to get traffic through the city, North/South and East/West. I have counted two, citywide, one of which happens to be on campus at UWO. There may be more, but they’re in the wrong places and do not serve the large student community (at least 20% of the city population).

4) It will stop the suburban sprawl. Let’s face it. There are currently over a dozen suburban wastelands being built at the far edges of London, with more planned. If a more efficient public transit system existed to serve the downtown and near downtown areas, then people would build UP not OUT. Stop destroying our beautiful forests and reduce the ecological footprint by living in sky-rise apartments. Besides, why does anyone want to live in a cookie-cutter-house in a neighborhood with un-navigable winding streets that are a 20 minute drive to get food, movies or a drink with friends? You could be living in an apartment with a cityscape view and only a few minutes away from all your needs.

3) City landmark. Although the John Labatt Centre and the University attract a lot of people to visit London, there is no landmark that is immediately identifiable with London. Having a monorail will make London a unique city, as opposed to being just like every other Southern Ontario city.

2) Reliability. The current bus system is unreliable. I’m not happy waiting 30 minutes for a bus to get me downtown on a Friday night. I want to party now, not in 30 minutes plus transit time. And why do busses stop running at midnight?!?! Maybe the cab companies have something to do with this conspiracy.

1) Traffic sucks. Just try driving across the “forest city” without screaming a few profanities. Traffic engineers have not yet managed to figure out how to time lights on major roads so there is no stopping. Making a few major streets one-way would definitely help. It worked for Hamilton. But I have a feeling the traffic engineers would just mess up this job too. So the only viable solution is a monorail. Get some engineering students to design it for school credit.

Journal of Experimental Cock and Bull

It would be an understatement to say I am frequently frustrated at the quality of scientific articles in high impact journals. Take the example of the cover story for the December 22nd 2005 edition of Nature: “Dancing’s role in sexual selection.” Why is this leading edge research? This is the kind of thing a group of poor-dancing MIT students try to answer on your average Friday night.

Another article is the recent June 30th 2006 edition of Science, where researchers tried to find a correlation between income and happiness. Newsflash: there is none. Mind you, the researchers didn’t ask anyone living below the poverty line how their day is going.

It was articles like these, and an inspiring conversation with colleagues, that has evoked me to create the Journal of Experimental Cock and Bull: An international bimonthly journal of pseudoscience. After creating the cover, I realized the theme behind it was eerily similar to The Onion. Soon there were visions of a successful spin-off company from my MSc degree flying through my head. About five minutes later, I realized my writing skills lack the wit and effectiveness of Onion editors (part of the reason I started this blog). Although, I am currently accepting abstracts for the second issue.

A priest, rabbi and pastafarian walk into a bar

In a recent article published in Science, the authors claim that public acceptance of evolution has decreased over the past 20 years in the US. While other counties can boast that over 80% of the population believes evolution to be true (Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and France), only 40% of Americans believed the same. Canada was not included in the study. The article goes on to explain that familiarity with genetics and basic biology is a major influential factor for adults who accept evolution.

When presented with a description of natural selection that omits the word evolution, 78% of adults agreed to a description of the evolution of plants and animals. But, 62% of adults in the same study believed that God created humans as whole persons without any evolutionary development.

So it seems that people are paying attention in school and church, but they have conflicting beliefs. Granted, it is not conflicting to believe in God and evolution. It seems politicals and corporate media may have had an influence on this. I recall a few Republican rallies where people had signs reading "My grandfather was not a monkey!" It makes me wonder if television shows like CSI can possibly help to educate the public about DNA, evolution and biology, or if they will just warp the public view further from the truth. Only another 20 years will tell.

Stargazing made easy with freeware program

I research migratory birds. So, for the past month, I have been waking up before dawn to go birding. This has given me a chance to do some early morning star gazing. I have found the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Night Sky book to be very helpful. But recently, I have discovered a freeware program called Stellarium. It is an impressive piece of software that can show you the sky in real-time from any location you choose. The atmospheric effects and jaw-dropping realistic skylines make this the best star-gazing software I’ve seen yet. And it’s free! The interface is very simple and intuitive making it easy to learn the stars. It gives me a new appreciation for the early explorers who relied on the stars for navigation, without the aid of GPS, software or even laser pointers.

Monkeys and Typewriters

If an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually recreate the complete works of Shakespeare, then one monkey at a computer will surely produce only jibberish.

It has been written about before, but I'm not sure who started it. The idea that genetic mutations leading to adaptive changes in a species is a process that can happen more quickly than just by chance. Think about it. Some genetic changes are bad, producing disease or death. These changes are weeded out of the next generation. Whereas genetic changes that are beneficial are passed on. Positive selection. Speeding along the development of adaptive traits.

But I do NOT believe this is the primary contributing factor to the evolution of a species. Rather, I believe sybiotic relationships lead to acquired genomes and this can lead to profound changes in an organism's physiology and biochemistry. Lynn Margulis is a strong advocate of this paradigm. However, she is admittedly not a pioneer in the idea. Many Russian scientists before Darwin believed sybiosis was an important life-changing process. Unfortunately, much of their research has been lost in political turnovers, or is in need of translation into other languages. There are some monkeys currently at work on this. More later.