cafecuriosity

Putting Surgical Innovation Under the Knife

Breaking news this week, as researchers declared, "Case closed." on the question of why eyelids sag with age. Now this isn't a topic that I normally find gripping, however it makes a compelling case for why professional practice needs to progress. The conventional surgical approach to sagging eyelids is to tighten either the muscle surrounding the eye or the ligament that holds the eyeball in place while spreading the fat present inside the eyelid around. Surgeons rarely actually remove fat during these procedures. Interestingly, there is no scientific evidence to show the muscle or ligament actually weakens with age! The culprit is increased fat deposits over time. To put this in context, 241,000 Americans sets of sagging eyelids went under the knife in 2007! Question is, how long will it take for this advance in theory to be reflected in surgical practice? It puts a new face on the old issue of dissemination of innovation.   http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/baggy-lower-eyelids-a-new-ucla-55830.aspx   Image: American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Recognising the New

You'd think all the effort and aggravation involved in making a discovery would be enough! But no, sometimes recognizing when a discovery actually is a discovery is the hard part. Biologists first observed the pretty little bird now known more formally as the olive-backed forest robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) during a field trip to Africa's remote southwest Gabon in 2001. At the time, it was assumed to be an immature bird from a documented species. An easy misinterpretation to make. However, it wasn't until a return trip in 2003 showed up distinct differences in plumage and colour that suspicion grew that this could be a whole new species. Scientists are a cautious lot and they waited for DNA comparisons to prove definitively that Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus was indeed Gabon's bird species no 753. For those who care to look, the unknown is still out there, even if its not as easy to spot as we might think!  http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/nzp_new_robin.htm   Image: Male specimen ofthe olive-backed forst robin, Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus, Brian Schmidt

History's Fingerprints

I finished reading 'Now Is Gone' by Geoff Livingston while I was enjoying a couple of days holiday in Brittany. On reflecting on the rise of new media, it occurred to me that much of the online commentariate is very much anchored in the here and now. I wonder how well it will perform over time. Time is one thing you get a feeling for in places like Brittany. My friends' stone cottage came complete with a 300 year old stone tower once used by the Knights Templar as a way station for pilgrims. On the coast, you can still see coastal gun emplacements dating back to WWII complete with communication trenches and underground ammunition bunkers. One gun battery was an old Napoleonic emplacement which had simply been reinforced and updated by the Germans - an alternate sense of continuity to the pretty coastal villages and manicured fields. The sense of past informing the present was reinforced by a news snippet I read about the discovery of the body of an Australian soldier from the First World War in Belgium. The long-lost soldier still held his rifle in his hands and is thought to be one of twenty soldiers from the 3rd Division who went missing during the Battle of Messines on June 7th, 1917. I wonder how well the emerging online news and commentary industry will view its links with its own long tail of history?

DelFly Micro Causes a Buzz

Last time I caught up with the engineers at Delft U, they had just received funding for their RoboSwift. TU Delft has continued their engineering obsession with ever smaller micro air vehicles with the unveiling of their DelFly Micro. The Micro stretches 10 cm from wingtip to wingtip and at 3 grams barely troubles the scales. Based on the flapping motion of the dragonfly, the Micro carries a tiny camera and runs image recognition software for its 3 minute flights at 5 meters per second. It is an evolutionary step between the DelFly II (which could fly horizontally, hover and fly backwards) and the projected DelFly NaNo which will have a wingspan of just 5 cms, weigh 1 gram and be capable of independent flight when it eventually debuts. Naturally, the military and police are keen observers of TU Delft's advances in miniaturisation. http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=43c2fd1b-f4e3-4a12-91a9-adfd518c2c88&lang=en  Image: DelFly micro air vehicle, TU Delft

Cosmic Ghost in the Machine

Astronomy has long held a 'special' relationship with amateurs. While other professions have derided amateurs as dilettantes and retreated behind tall walls offered by formal qualifications, astronomy has burbled along happily. Comets and super nova are frequently spotted by dedicated enthusiasts and astronomers for their part have learned to tap the power of social networks. Projects such as Astronomy Zoo enable the public (150,000 participated, classifying 1 million images) to participate in online astronomical research. Hanny van Arkel a Dutch school teacher found an astonishing nugget in the online catalogue of galaxy images - discovering a new class of celestial object in the process. The image had been sitting quietly in the archives for decades until Henny came across it. That object (Voorwerp in Dutch) proved to be over 16,000 light years across and astronomers have no idea how it formed - some 'ghost'!   http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=5934   Image: Hanny's Voorwerp and IC2497, Dan Smith, Peter Herbert, Matt Jarvis & the ING

Ventmobile Breezes Past

Competitors in the Aeolus Race in Den Helder (Netherlands) will be looking over the shoulders after Stuttgart University's Team InVentus unveiled their latest wind powered prototype - the 'Ventmobile'. Five teams from European universities and research institutes will be challenging for glory on the three kilometer track. Designed as a renewable energy demonstrator, the three wheeled 'Ventmobile' (which looks it should be sailing down a beach somewhere) relies solely on the wind for locomotion, directed via its two meter diameter two bladed rotor. Somehow I can't seeing it blasting down Shaik Z Road in Dubai!  http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/presse/2008/70.html   Image: Ventmobile prototype, Tobias Klaus

The Long Tail of Curiosity

I've been enjoying Chris Anderson's The Long Tail recently. One of the more robust debates about the new economics of online life has centered on whether the rise of social networks has triggered a decline in mainstream cultural institutions and if so, whether this will produce a flight to the middle where opinions converge into some kind of nightmare American Idolesque programming. Given The Long Tail's core hypothesis is that endless choice creates unlimited demand I was keen to see how curiosity fitted into these new economics. Not unexpectedly, Chris' perspective owes much to abundance, "I suspect that over time the power of human curiosity combined with near-infinite access to information will tend to make most people more open-minded, not less." H egoes on to observe that while mass culture is under pressure, common culture - what which we share with others but not everyone will continue forming and reforming.

The music industry has form when it comes to resisting change even during its vinyl clad 'golden era' as Chris Welch's 'Peter Grant the Man Who Led Zeppelin' shows. Grant's unique approach to business and commitment to his band fundamentally changed the power relationships between rock bands, their record labels and the venue promoters who staged their live shows. In the process, Grant focused on the fans desire to see Led Zeppelin play - as the leverage behind his negotiating position. Choice for Grant was all about the fans and the band not the scarcity imposed by limited retail shelf space.