The Vestibular System

This week on PopSiren I went a completely different direction from the first episode. Yea, sorry. No fire this time around, but we did play with a way for you to make your friends dizzy. Yes, I talked about the inner ear. And, I spun Neha around and around and around and…

The vestibular system is not just your inner ear, but consists of all the proprioceptive organs in the body. Proprioception helps your brain figure out where your body is in space. Normally, all the different organs work together very nicely, but sometimes one or more are disabled. This leads to trouble in spatial perception and balance.

In the show, I demonstrated how simply closing the eyes can remove one of the important markers of body position in space. Think I’m kidding? Just try spinning around with your eyes closed and see where you end up.

There is fluid in the canals of the inner ears called endolymph. When the head is still, so is the endolymph. When the head moves, inertia causes the endolymph to move in the opposite direction. So, if you are turning to the left, your endolymph is moving to the right, and vice versa, up, down, and round and round. In the segment on PopSiren I asked Neha to close her eyes. Then I spun her right round to her left. You can totally see that her eyes are moving to the right when I stop her and have her open her eyes.

The second demonstration didn’t work as well as I would have liked, but it did work. By having Neha put her head down while she’s spun around, I was isolating the posterior canals in her inner ear. If you look really carefully at her eyes when she comes to a stop, you can see them moving diagonally up and to the right for a moment. All triggered by the semi-circular canals. What do you think would have happened to her eyes had I asked her to put her head on her shoulder?

If I had the time, I would have also shown that Neha’s perception of direction would have been the opposite of her actual direction of movement. You can do this yourselves (those of you who are adventurous enough to give this trick a shot). Make sure you keep absolutely quiet during the spin, and  try to not jar the chair as you spin it. Then have the victim… ahem, volunteer indicate which direction they think they are moving with their thumb (to the right for right, to the left, for left, and straight up for no movement). Because the volunteer’s eyes are closed their sense of movement will come only from their inner ear, which as a result of physics is backwards. You can also play around with stopping the volunteer suddenly versus letting them spin slowly to a stop. See for yourself and let me know what you find.

I mentioned the otolith organs, the saccule and utricle, but never really explained them. While the semi-circular canals detect rotational movement, the otolith organs detect movement in linear planes (i.e. front to back, side to side, up and down). The endolymph of the otolith organs is interesting because it contains little particles called otoconia, which enhance the signal to the brain by making the endolymph in that part of the ear denser. Thus, causing greater shearing force to take place between the layer of endolymph and the layer with all the hair cells adjacent to it.

Now for how all this applies to you. If you are prone to motion sickness, you probably know all sorts of tricks to combat the sick feeling like sitting in the front of the car, being able to see the horizon, or pushing on a pressure point on your wrist. The reason that the tricks work is that you are using the other organs in your vestibular system (namely, the eyes and skin) to help override a mismatch between your inner ears and your actual state of motion.

I hope that everyone learned something new this week. I had a lot of fun with the show (nevermind that I actually got to co-host!!!) and the segment. Next week, I think I’m playing with magnets and explaining the basics about how they work.

Breaking News!

So, I’ve commented off and on and here and there about a new show being produced by Revision3 in which I get to play the mad scientist. Oh, oops… sorry, that’s the RAD Scientist. My segment, called Rad Science, is part of an amazing program called PopSiren that was just released to the public today. It’s first official showing will be today at 12 noon. You can find the show at Revision3‘s website.

PopSiren is hosted by Jessica Corbin and Sarah Lane (both of Tech TV fame), and features cool DIY tips, tricks, and projects for girls and boys. Neha Tiwari is the resident Nerd Bird, and I get to do science. Yay! My favorite. PopSiren is produced and directed by Heather Frank.

The reason that I initially became excited about this project was that I would have the opportunity to work with four amazing women, each with unique strengths and interests. The combination could be nothing more than amazing. And, so far it has. Each week I am absolutely impressed by the abilities these women bring to the table. What a fantastic experience!So, my first week on the job was the craziest experience ever. I was in the process of moving from Davis to SF with way to much stuff on my plate when Heather asked if I could have a segment ready for the following week. Of course, I said yes. I spent the week trying to fit my research for the segment in between packing boxes and cleaning nooks and crannies. The idea I came up with was inspired by watching a few sciencey videos on the internet. However, it was kind of involved and required the building of a fairly large apparatus – a Ruben’s Tube.

Enter my friends: thanks to the help of the amazing people in my life everything came together. Of course, it was all at the 11th hour, but it got done. We moved on a very rainy Saturday, and on Sunday the script was written and the Ruben’s Tube was built. We tested it sometime around midnight the night before the PopSiren shoot. Everything worked beautifully.The next day I hauled everything down to the Revision3 studios (and totally felt like a crazy person with this giant aluminum tube in my arms as I walked down the street) for the shoot. Once I was all set up, I had to deal with the actual recording. OMG! Tele-prompters?!? This was going to be interesting. It is actually quite difficult to read from a tele-prompter and NOT look like you’re reading. I guess you learn something new everyday, and today was the lesson in tele-prompters. We went through the segment a couple of times and then moved on to recording. It all went surprisingly smoothly. What a relief when it was over. I really wanted to do a good job, and I think that I did. My secret was to make sure I had fun. Not terribly hard when I’m playing with fire. 😉

What does a Ruben’s tube have to do with fire? Well, the Ruben’s tube, also known as a flame tube, is named after Heinrich Rubens (1865 – 1922), a German physicist who used to hang out with the likes of Max Planck. While he is better known for his role in working out quantum theory, he used his knowledge of sound and pressure to create the first flame tube. A flame tube consists of a pipe, sealed at one end, with holes drilled along its length. the unsealed end of the pipe houses a speaker. Flammable gas is pumped into the tube. When the gas begins to escape through the little holes, the gas is lit. It looks like lots of little candles. Then sound is transmitted to the tube via the speaker. This is where the fun starts.

Sound is a physical effect of the movement of matter. Some initial force creates waves of pressure that push air particles into and past each other. So, when the speaker is turned on it creates sound waves in the tube. The waves act on the gas in the tube, compressing it, and pushing it out through the little holes. Because of the tube itself, it is possible to visualize the standing waves of sound in the flames on top of the tube. The flame tube demonstrates the physical aspect of sound that is normally invisible to the human eye.Fun, right? I thought so. You can see what my friends and I built on PopSiren’s launch episode.

Check it out!

Food Science Demo Reel

I got Joe Lindsay at Pixelcorps to edit me a demo reel of the work I’ve been doing with them on Food Science. Take a look! Oh, and if you want to see Food Science in full go to www.onfoodscience.tv for lots of great episodes brought to you by the amazing people at OnNetworks.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

And, mine is certainly now in San Francisco. The past month has brought some incredible changes to my life, and I am now looking (only somewhat fearfully) at the upcoming year with excitement. I am commuting once a week to Davis, CA for TWIS. We’ll see how long I’ll be up to the commute, but I promise that TWIS will persist regardless. Food Science is on hold for the time being. Hopefully, we’ll be bringing new episodes to you sooner rather than later. And, I’m working on a new project with Revision3, which will launch in late February. Stay tuned for lots of science fun!

In the meantime, this past week included two important days: Valentine’s Day and Darwin’s birthday. While I saw people running around with flowers, cards, and candy for the former, the latter heralded hardly a peep outside the science community. It’s quite a shame I think that a vaguely known Saint is so celebrated, but Darwin remains in the sidelines aside for the occasional attacks by religious fundamentalists.

Many scientific hypotheses come and go, but Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection has weathered the tests of time. It remains a solid, well-tested mechanism comprising one of the fundamental processes of the Theory of Evolution. Darwin’s influence on the entire field of evolutionary thought cannot be discounted, and is possibly as important as that of Einstein on the field of physics. Yet, where is the love? Here’s a song produced by a friend of mine, which I think does a great job of covering the issue. Expect to hear it on the 2008 TWIS compilation cd!

Robots Are Our Friends

Sorry that the proportions don’t allow you the full view (I had to make it smaller to fit this main column), but you get the idea. Robots, sweet robots. 🙂 Thank you, Mystery Bob and Albino Blacksheep!

Steve Jobs Almost Picked Me!

Haha! The MacWorld Keynote almost featured li’l ol’ me. Steve Jobs gave an example of the HD videos available through Apple TV. When he went to the screen in iTunes, Food Science was right there at the top of the list next to a show about snowboarding. Steve’s mouse was right next to me! But, the snowboarder won out, which I understand completely. I can’t really compete for entertainment value with people jumping off of mountains.

The Future?

Thank you, The Onion (and Steve in Michigan for sending the link!).

In The Know: Are We Giving The Robots That Run Our Society Too Much Power?

Wouldn’t You Know It?

The monkeys invented prostitution way back… or, at least, men have had to work for sex throughout history.

There’s been a sense in the animal behavior world for quite some time (since around 1994 when biological markets were first proposed) that sex should be thought of as a commodity. It is THE big resource for life. Without it, there would be no procreation, and females hold the key. So, this research goes some way toward providing evidence for the idea.

My big question, however, is why is this such a big story? It is everywhere in the news, and I have been sent the story by at least four separate people. Is it that the combination of monkeys and sex in one story is just too good to pass up?

Isn’t It Interesting That…

“In an age when people have benefited so greatly from science and reason, it is ironic that some still reject the tools that have afforded them the privilege to reject them, says Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal.” (Link)

This is a fact that I have yet to comprehend.

Do You Think I’m Sexy?

At least a couple of people think I’m a sexy geek. That’s pretty cool. Although, I hope it’s my mind (and fanatical drive to  popularize science) they find sexy.
I have been nominated for the Wired Magazine 2007 Sexiest Geek Contest. It really is an honor to be up there with all those other geeks. Especially when there are so many more geeks out there not even being recognized. (I think I need to nominate Lisa Randall.) Thanks to those who have voted for me. I forgive you if you voted me down. And, if you haven’t voted me up yet, what are you waiting for? Click the link and scroll through the list until you find me.