cafecuriosity

Synchronicity and Sea Monsters

I had an engaging conversation lately with Luke Naismith about the nature of serendipity and his own interest in synchronicity. After picking through the pages of Combs and Hollands' 'Synchronicity', I put synchronicity to the test by shuffling through a deck of University updates I'd been meaning to catch up on. Sure enough, I surfaced (no pun intended) my own example of Luke's 'meaningful coincidences'. In far away Norway, a University of Oslo team found a 150 million year old, 50 foot pliosaur. Named 'The Monster', the Oslo specimen is one of the most massive yet found. All up, the team found over 40 fossil skeletons at Svalbard - one of the richest sites in the world. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a new genus of plesiosaur was found in a mine near Fort McMurray. Now its true, both finds fall into different epochs (Jurassic versus Cretaceous) and vary wildly in size (15 meters against 2.5) but both are marine reptiles and both are the best preserved specimens of their species and both surfaced almost simultaneously on different sides of the globe. Synchronicity? Close enough, me thinks.

http://www.nhm.uio.no/pliosaurus/english/index.html   http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/march2008/Plesiosaur-unearthed   Image: 1. Svalbard pliosaurus, University of Oslo, 2. Plesiosaur, Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

If An Iceberg Splits Does Dubai Notice?

A shift in geographical location can stimulate the oddest connections. Looking at the photo of the massive iceberg A53A breaking apart, my immediate reaction wasn't to reflect on the health of the Antarctic ice sheet or ponder the potential hazard to shipping posed by the numerous small iceberg bound to calve from the two parent bergs, it was, "I wonder what's going to happen to 'The Palm' (a massive man made island in Dubai) if sea levels rise?" How we make connections is one of the most intriguing aspects of the human brain. Our consciousness is shaped by our world view, subconscious values, life experiences and emotional drivers. What resonates with us drives the media and fashion industries and is constantly on the move like our iceberg. Incidentally, A53A calved from the Larsen Ice Shelf in 2005. Each remaining piece is around 30 km long.

PS. Ironically, the biggest hotel on 'The Palm' is 'Atlantis' - intuitively, that is either rich irony or prescience!

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMIZLM5NDF_index_0.html   Image: 1. Splitting iceberg snapped by Envisat, ESA, 2. Close up of fissure dividing A53A, ESA

Nippy Breeze and the First Nickers

Where does inspiration come from? What stimulates human inventiveness? As a farm boy and archaeology nut, I've always been interested in the emergence of organised settlements. Conventional wisdom holds that the domestication of crops was triggered by our desire for more reliable sources of food. A postgraduate researcher from the ANU reckons that's all wrong! Ian Gilligan poses an alternative view - farming emerged in response to the social effects of the Northern Hemisphere's last ice age. Humans became accustomed to wearing multiple layers of clothing to ward off the effects of a cooler climate. By the time the climate warmed, humans had become accustomed to clothing and had modified it into a form of display and social status - hence the demand for fibre rich plants such as cotton, hemp, jute and linen. In Australia, the climate remained mild and our Aboriginal population never felt the need for clothing beyond simple skins. Gilligan suggests that hunting and gathering was a more flexible and efficient source of food. In Gilligan's view, "The idea that early farming offered humans a more reliable food supply has been exposed as a myth." It seems farming was about undies all along - if only I'd known, I may still be on the family farm!   http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/2044959.htm   Image: Modern cotton, iStockphoto

Virtual Fencing

As a little takker growing up on the family farm, one of my chores was to bring the milking cows up from the bottom paddock each evening. Luckily, the girls knew the way better than I did and wandered along at their own sweet pace, oblivious to my encouragement or the stick I brandished (which was usually bigger than I was). It was one of those virtual jobs you do when you're four and living on a farm. The CSIRO however have taken livestock control to a new level with their new virtual fencing system. The prototype uses software driven electronic collars linked to a GPS unit. The collars emit a sound (kind of like I did!) when the unit's program determines the cattle are approaching a designated boundary. In about an hour, the cattle learn where their virtual limits are, as cattle do and avoid the boundary line. Its an interesting example of how technology can transform the nature of work and shift the underlying economics in industries undergoing transition. You can also understand why the Bush wants decent comm links - bandwidth matters. Fencing paddocks is hard, tough work; it's expensive and requires maintenance and replacement over time - particularly after a bushfire. It will be interesting to see if the collars prove to be cost effective. Only downside is that a beeping collar lacks the aesthetics of Swiss cow bells!   http://www.csiro.au/news/VirtualFencingMediaRelease.html   Image: 1. Dr Caroline Lee and Dr Andrew Fisher with an electronic collar, The Land 2. CSIRO's satellite based 'virtual fencing' system, CSIRO

Bali's Hard Lessons Learned

It's well established that humans learn far more from failure than we ever do from success. It's seemingly one of the quirks of our brain's wiring. Few lessons came harder than the importance of mental health to the treatment mix in the aftermath of the Bali bombings. The 2002 bombing at Paddy's Bar and the Sari Club in Kuta was Australia's terrorism initiation. Staff at the Royal Darwin Hospital found themselves on the front line. Victims and medical staff alike experienced profound mental health problems immediately after the bombings. By the 2005 bombing, trauma care and psychiatric support were more closely linked and the hospital's ability to cope was significantly enhanced. So what were our lessons learned? Unsurprisingly, it revealed the need for experienced mental health professionals on-site ahead of the first influx of casualties. Secondly, medical staff was just as likely to need support as the victims themselves. Some staff became highly anxious waiting for the first victims to arrive. Still others reported smelling burnt flesh - a throwback to the chemical burns they associated with the 2002 bombing. Thirdly, the mental health nurses had to be become part of Royal Darwin Hospital and not just add-ons. In 2005 mental health nurses were on-site at Royal Darwin Hospital, supporting the staff during their wait for the first casualties to arrive. (In stress situations, anticipation and our empathy are not our friends!). Many victims couldn't eat because they associated meals with the explosion (the bomb went off around mealtime). Others experienced depersonalisation, disassociation, disbelief and anger. As with other emergency services situations, trauma responses improve the more those involved understand the experience ahead of them and adopt a holistic approach to dealing with crisis situations. The better prepared we are, the better our skills, the greater our resilience and ability to adapt and cope.  http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-2850.2007.01068.  Image: 1. www.answrs.com, 2. www.afp.gov.au, 3. www.news.bbc.co.uk

Biplane Bird Sparks Scientific Stoush

The world of ideas is full of argy-bargy, with no end of individuals happy to passionately argue opposing perspectives. How birds evolved flight has been one of the more entertaining duels since the first Archaeopteryx fossil was found in Germany in 1861. Essentially, two schools of thought emerged and have been locked in a death grip over the decades. In the blue corner, we have the 'ground up' theory that explains flight by having birds achieve lift-off while running on the ground. In the red corner, we have the 'trees down' model with birds launching into gliding type flight from trees. Now another shot has been fired by the "tree' brigade. CafeCuriosity has long observed that we tend to find what we look for and in the case of Archaeopteryx; scientists were focused on the wing feathers and ignored the feathered hind limbs. A seismic shift occurred in 2002 when some troublemaker in China described more four-winged fossils. It seems the scientists had been looking for what they expected to see and given conventional birds have two wings they certainly weren't looking for four wings! Yep, it seems Archaeopteryx was a biplane all along, with lift generating canards!  http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/september2006/Archaeopteryx-lithographica/

Image: Nick Longrich, University of Calgary

Unlikely Living Laboratories

Anyone working in knowledge intensive fields or with organisational culture can identity with the phrases "it doesn't matter where you start as long as you do" and Nike's "Just do it!" With the complexity and "noise" of modern organisations and ubiquitous resource constraints, pilots and prototypes assume a heightened importance in building experience with new ways of working, tools and techniques. Pilots rely on us being sufficiently situationally aware to piggy back opportunistically on another initiative and in being positioned to recognise and exploit serendipitous events. A team from the University of Liverpool's School of Biological Sciences lived that reality last year. They found the 100 life size statues which formed an art installation on Crosby Beach had been colonised by the Elminius modestus barnacle. These barnacles originate an ocean away in Australia - a heck of a swim! While Elminius modestus isn't fond of sandy beaches it seems the statues' nooks and crannies offer a perfect anchor point and shelter from the surge! Like many pilots, the study's timing enjoyed a window of opportunity driven by external factors - in this case, the statues were cleaned and shipped off to New York in November. As with all good pilots, one door closes and another opens - in New York for U.S. marine scientists to follow up the Uni of Liverpool's research - serendipity rules once more! http://www.liv.ac.uk/newsroom/press_releases/2006/10/Living_laboratory_fo.htm

Image: Researcher Matt Iles at work on one of the statues, University of Liverpool

Dr Roseberg's Persistent Curiosity

It's a common experience, picking up a seashell as we walk along the seashore. For most of us that's as far as we go in thinking about molluscs. Dr Gary Rosenberg, took it that bit further. For 15 years he meticulously built up a research database, summarising the information and distribution of molluscs in the Western Atlantic from Greenland to Antarctica. His motivation - no reason really, he just found it interesting. Dr Rosenberg's work continued, leading him to the post of Vice President for the Center for Systematic Biology and Evolution at Philadelphia's The Academy of Natural Sciences. Then it occurred to him to apply his carefully compiled data to a scientific debate that's rolled on for 40 years - the island rule: small animals isolated on islands evolve to be larger than their mainland relatives, while large animals evolve to be smaller. Dr Rosenberg and his co-authors applied the rule to animals in the deep ocean, using his database of marine snails and found a similar pattern. The result was peer reviewed and published in the Journal of Biogeography. It's another quirky example of emergence at work, nurturing curiosity and arriving at a wholly serendipitous destination! For more on molluscs, see: http://www.ansp.org/press/release/deep_sea_evolution_9-06.doc

Image: A Giant deep-sea isopod, a relative of the ting "pill bugs" found in tidal pools, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Asking the Right Question

Growing up on the family farm, we had 2 ways of dealing with weeds - we either ploughed them into the ground or poisoned them with herbicides like Roundup. In some years the weeds were really vigorous, others less so. Yet it never occurred to us there might be a cycle involved, we just focused on control - poisoning & ploughing. In hindsight, this is weird because we were highly attuned to the turning seasons and the cycles of bushfires and droughts. Our control fixation stopped us asking why weeds were prolific at certain times and in certain locations on the farm. Similarly, we never wondered  if all those chemicals would have any long term impact on our soil or water sources. Those were the pre-sustainability days. Sadly, the questions we ask often predetermine the answers we receive - in life and in business. For an eco-perspective on weed cycles, take a look at The American Naturalist or go to: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/press/083106_AN.html

Photo: J.L. Gonzalez-Andujar

Napping Babies Snooze Thru Abstract Learning

Came across an interesting snippet on research into the development of infant learning by the University of Arizona as reported in the August 2006 Psychological Science journal. Three Arizona U psychologists found frequent naps help babies develop their ability to learn about the world around them. Babies who napped after a "learning" experience were able to recognise a general pattern in the new information, while babies who didn't nap only responded to the familiar information. So, the 'napped' developed the ability to recognise a pattern around novel information - a qualitative change in their memory development. This research poses two questions for me. 1. Does this have implications for stressed managers struggling to absorb new information and distil a pattern around their experiences? 2. How smooth did the researchers have to be to persuade the parents to sign off on the research and were they aware their babies would miss out on their afternoon naps?