Month: November 2016

It’s now possible to send text messages through glass cleaner and vinegar. Technology invented by Stanford University engineers can relay messages through pulses of acids and bases to pH sensors, as The Verge reports. All it requires is a machine that can send out and decode messages of this type.

Researchers have been able to type text messages into a special machine that then sends out signals with vinegar and glass cleaners to a computer that decodes the chemicals back into text. Initially, inventor Nariman Farsad tried to use vodka to send messages, but the signals ended up building up so much that messages could no longer be received—kind of like a voicemail box that is too full. Instead, by using acids and bases (in places of the binary zeros and ones used by other communication systems), the chemicals cancel each other out when they’re received by the computer. The chemicals do, however, leave behind some residue, which means there’s a bit of noise in the signal that will have to be eliminated to make it truly effective.

The application of such a technology isn’t immediately clear, but the Stanford researchers suggest in a press release that it could be used underwater or in places with a lot of metal—both locations that usually confound electromagnetic communication signals. Because the tech could someday be used without electronics, it could potentially be harnessed to send messages off the grid, or to send signals between biotechnology nanorobots inside the body.

[h/t The Verge]

All images via YouTube courtesy Stanford University

Planning your first trip with a new significant other, friend, or coworker? Traveling with someone for the first time is exciting, especially if it signals a step forward in your relationship. But being together in close quarters or stressful situations can also reveal hidden sides of your companion.

“[Travel] can expose things about each other that you hadn’t previously seen, such as hygiene habits, spending differences, tidiness or messiness, sleep issues like snoring, and eating schedules and habits,” says Tina Tessina, PhD, a psychotherapist and author of Love Styles: How to Celebrate Your Differences. “Travel often creates stress: when plans go awry, a flight is delayed, luggage gets lost, a hotel room isn’t as expected, or the weather doesn’t cooperate. All of these experiences will test your ability to solve problems together on the spot.”

Before you jet off, here are a few steps to take to avoid any potential conflict.

1. TALK ABOUT MONEY.

“I recently embarked on an overseas trip with a longtime friend, our first-ever together,” says frequent traveler Kari Cruz. “While we’ve been friends for five plus years, there are definitely some standard questions you should ask beforehand … You don’t always think to do this when you’ve gotten to know a person for a long time.”

Specifically, Cruz suggests asking about spending habits. “Are you flexible on where you want to eat and how you want to indulge? This may strain outings if you aren’t on similar budgets,” she says.

You also want to discuss exactly how each of you will pitch in for expenses like gas, hotels, restaurants, and so on. The answer may seem as simple as “split it down the middle,” but if your friend has some expensive tastes—or, conversely, a tight budget—you might be in for a surprise.

2. PLAN SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES BEFORE YOU GO.

Aside from the money, you may have different ideas about what you want to do and see during the trip. “Don’t make assumptions that your companion will like what you like,” says Tessina. “You may have dreams of lying on a beach, while your companion loves the nightlife. Find out who wants what.”

Start by coming up with a list of activities you each want to fit in and rank them by priority. When you’ve each written down three to four sites you have to see, schedule them into your itinerary. If there’s extra time, you can squeeze in some low-priority activities from each list.

“Don’t spring surprises on your travel companion,” Tessina adds. “While it might be nice to see someone you know on your travels, or to visit a place you visited with your ex, your companion might see it differently, if not given time to deal with it in advance.”

3. DISCUSS DAILY HABITS.

It helps to understand your travel partner’s day-to-day habits, too. “It could definitely hamper plans and itineraries if you’re on different schedules,” Cruz says. You might be a morning person who wants to get a jump on the day, while your travel companion is a night owl who’d prefer to spend her nights clubbing and the mornings sleeping in.

By discussing your habits in advance, you can not only prevent conflicts but also create a realistic itinerary. Don’t plan to be at the museum when it opens at 9 a.m. if you know it’s a struggle to rise before 10. And if you know you’ll get grumpy without an afternoon nap, don’t be shy about leaving time for that, too.

4. CREATE TRAVEL GOALS.

“Talk in advance about your hopes, expectations, and fears about the trip,” Tessina says. “While you can’t anticipate everything, having discussed these issues will help each of you understand the other better.”

Along the same lines, it may help to establish some overall travel goals for the trip. Do you want to learn about a destination’s culture or do you want to come back recharged? Or both? You may have different ideas, but by discussing them before you leave home you can figure out how to best accommodate both your needs.

5. SCHEDULE TIME APART.

If each of you has starkly different budgets or priorities for the trip, you might consider scheduling time apart to do those things on your own. And even if your goals and plans align, taking some time and space for yourself can be crucial for keeping the peace.

“Traveling together is great—but sometimes we need alone time,” Cruz says. She recommends discussing and scheduling this time in advance to make sure your partner is okay with it—and making it clear your need for a break isn’t a reaction to something they did. You’ll both get to squeeze in all of your activities, and best of all, you can regroup after and share your experiences.

Spectrum Toy Store isn’t your typical one-stop shop for kids’ trinkets. As ABC7 Chicago reports, the brand-new nonprofit business in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood caters to kids on the autism spectrum. Its toys and products are specially designed for customers with developmental disabilities, and families can try out the toys before they buy them to make sure they’re a good fit.

Jamilah Rahim, a behavioral therapist, opened Spectrum Toy Store after she noticed that many of the families she worked with were buying their toys online because no local stores carried them. On top of that, there was no guarantee that their kids would even like the products once they arrived.

“Every child with a disability is different and their needs are different,” Rahim told The Mighty. “Being able to come feel and see the product before purchasing it gives the comfort of knowing you have purchased the right product for your child.”

In addition to selling toys, Spectrum—which has a partnership with nonprofit organization Children’s Advanced Recreation and Education—offers programs for customers with disabilities, ages 3 to 13.

“We do different activity groups,” Rahim told ABC7 Chicago. “We focus on different core areas like communication skills, life skills, cognitive skills, gross and fine motor skills and sensory play. All of the classes are play based; since we are a toy store we try to gear everything around play so we do different activities with different toys to help support the skill deficit that children may have.”

Spectrum Toy Store is the first store of its kind in Illinois, and one of several to open across the U.S. Families that live outside Chicago can purchase Spectrum’s toys online.

[h/t ABC7 Chicago]

Scotland may soon take a major step toward narrowing the country’s hunger gap. As the Independent reports, the government is considering a “right to food” law that would make substantial and affordable meals accessible to everyone.

The proposal comes after the release of a report by the Independent Working Group on Food Poverty [PDF]. According to the publication, the number of requests for emergency food supplies in Scotland rose from around 14,000 in 2012 and 2013 to nearly 134,000 in 2015 and 2016. Legislating the right to food wouldn’t abolish hunger in the country completely, but the group hopes it would reduce the dependence on emergency rations to stay fed.

With the right to food protected by law, the Scottish government would have a legal obligation to implement policies and distribute resources as well as its powers allow. As the group writes in the report, “Underpinning policy with law makes policy more resilient and durable as governments change […] Tackling food insecurity in Scotland, like tackling homelessness, is a challenge which will outlast several parliaments.” They also recommend introducing a uniform system that could be used to measure food security.

Poverty is a pervasive issue in Scotland, and it hits children especially hard. A 2015 survey saw a 51 percent increase in the number of students going to school hungry. It’s such a common problem that teachers are trained to identify malnourished kids. If the new provision passes through, that would make Scotland the second European country to enshrine the right to food into law, the first being Ukraine. 

[h/t Independent]

How do antibiotics work?

Drew Smith:

Antibiotics have been around for a long time now, and we know which bacterial proteins they attack. ß-lactams like amoxicillin inhibit the enzyme that crosslinks peptidoglycans in bacterial cell walls. Fluoroquinolones like ciprofloxacin bind DNA topoisomerases and prevent them from coiling and uncoiling bacterial chromosomes. But so what? How does blocking these processes actually kill bacterial cells?

It turns out that we really don’t know a lot about how antibiotics actually kill bacteria, although we are beginning to get some clues.

One of these clues is that some antibiotics require bacterial protein synthesis in order to be effective: inhibition of protein synthesis reduces the lethality of ß-lactams, for instance. Simply blocking cell wall synthesis does not lead to rapid and complete killing of bacteria—something more is required.

Further research shows that antibiotics induce bacterial stress responses, and it is these responses, rather than the immediate activity of the antibiotics, which lead to cell death. In fact, a unified theory of antibiotic-induced cell death is beginning to emerge in which several classes of antibiotics work through a common mechanism.

Essentially, the stress response of cells to antibiotics causes disregulation of the carefully controlled membrane electrical potential. All cells generate chemical energy by pumping positively charged protons out of the cell, leaving an excess of negatively charged electrons within. The electrical potential created by this mechanism is enormous, as Nick Lane has pointed out; at the cellular scale, it is equivalent to a bolt of lightning.

Normally this power is used to turn a turbine-like molecular assembly (ATP synthase) that converts electrical energy into chemical energy. But when the flow of power is disrupted, a storm of highly reactive electrons is let loose in the cell, where they destroy everything—proteins, DNA, RNA.

We don’t yet understand all the steps that make this happen. That blue box in the figure which says “Metabolic Feedback” is really a black box. But this research should surely lead to new strategies for designing antibiotics and suppressing the evolution of antibiotic resistance.

This post originally appeared on Quora. Click here to view.

In honor of this weekend’s World Toilet Day, it’s time to embrace your inner poet. The awareness-raising holiday for sanitation issues—one of the leading causes of child death worldwide—takes place on November 19. This year, DefeatDD, an initiative combating diarrheal diseases from the global health nonprofit PATH, has launched the third edition of its “Doo a Poo Haiku” awareness campaign, NPR reports.

The contest part of the campaign is already over, sadly, but DefeatDD wants to keep the poo-etic musings flowing and is encouraging people to keep submitting their haikus on Twitter with the hashtag #poohaiku.

Some of the current submissions include gems like these:

When you have to go,
It’s quite important to know,
You won’t be in woe.

oh crap butt’s hurting
i guess i should watch my hands
damn you e.coli

Poo here and there
Makes for illness everywhere
Poo belongs in the loo

And yes, there is the occasional video:

“It’s more than just squirts!” Dick Guerrant, @CGHUVA, reads his #poohaiku with help from Andy Prendergast. #TropMed16 pic.twitter.com/gejA4mQeNh

— DefeatDD (@DefeatDD) November 14, 2016

Check out some of the other submissions by searching the hashtag #poohaiku.

[h/t NPR]

Though many of us think of Cuba as one island, it’s actually an archipelago made up of more than 4000 islands and keys—20 percent of which is protected area. In its new bilingual exhibition “¡Cuba!”, the American Museum of Natural History looks at the cultural history of the country as well as its natural history, showing everything from how Cuban cigars are made to the endemic creatures that can be found only on Cuba. AMNH scientists have been working in Cuba for more than a century—their first expedition was made in 1892—and this exhibition was created in partnership with scientists at the Cuban National Museum of Natural History. “¡Cuba!” opens to the public on Monday, November 21; here are few things we learned at the preview.

1. Cuba is home to some 372 species of bird, 24 of which are endemic. One such bird is the Cuban parakeet, whose numbers have been depleted by the pet trade; one of the only places you can see big flocks of the birds is in Cuba’s Zapata National Park.

2. Of the 190 species of butterfly that can be found in Cuba, at least 35 species are endemic to the island, including the clearwing butterfly (Greta cubana). Though it could once be found all across the island, these days its range is restricted to protected areas of humid forests.

3. Want to tell a Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) from an American croc (Crocodylus acutus)? Look for bony ridges behind the eyes, which American crocodiles lack.

4. In prehistoric times, Cuba was home to the largest owl that has ever lived: Ornimegalonyx. AMNH’s exhibition has the first scientifically accurate rendering of this enormous bird, which was more than 3 feet tall.

5. Solenodon cubanus—a venomous, 2-pound mammal endemic to Cuba and commonly known as almiqui—was once believed to be extinct. Then, in the mid-1970s, scientists discovered one of the animals in Humboldt Park; today, scientists know of 11 individuals, though evidence suggests there may be more out there.

6. The patterns and colors on the shells of Polymita land snails vary widely even within the same species; scientists theorize this diversity is an adaptation the snails use to confuse predators.

7. Like the other armored fishes in its genus, the Cuban gar (Atractosteus tristoechus) has adapted to breathe air.

8. Take a trip to “¡Cuba!” and you’ll see a Cuban boa (Epicrates angulifer), a mostly ground-dwelling snake that hangs out around the mouths of caves—the better to grab bats from the air when they fly by.

9. Cuba is home to the bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), the smallest bird in the world. It weighs just one-twentieth of an ounce.

10. Millions of years ago, Cuba was home to primates, the last of which, Paralouatta varonai, weighed up to 20 pounds and may have been related to howler monkeys. When it was discovered, the skull above was missing large sections; scientists used modern monkeys to reconstruct its face. 

College football fans are no strangers to blowouts. Just look at the 2016 season: Missouri pummeled Delaware State, 79-0; Michigan smothered Rutgers, 78-0; Miami slugged Florida A&M, 70-3. But those games sound like gentle drubbings compared to the lopsided 1916 skirmish between Georgia Tech and Cumberland University, which ended 222-0.

If that score sounds spiteful, it was. Georgia Tech’s coach, John Heisman—for whom the coveted trophy is named—was reportedly bent on revenge. A year earlier, during the spring of 1915, Cumberland’s baseball club had recruited a handful of semi-professional ballplayers from Nashville and disguised them as college athletes. Boasting a lineup stacked with pros, the little Tennessee college creamed Georgia Tech’s ball club, 22-0.

The defeat garnered national attention, leaving Heisman, who coached both Georgia Tech’s baseball and football teams, humiliated. When he discovered that Cumberland had cheated, he vowed to get payback.

Oddly, Heisman nearly missed his chance. By 1916, Cumberland, a university out of Lebanon, Tennessee, a small town about 30 minutes outside of Nashville, was facing financial difficulties and as such canceled that year’s season of football. The football squad’s student manager notified its opponents that, since it would not be fielding a team that season, Cumberland would have to cancel all scheduled games. But Cumberland made a careless mistake—they forgot to brief Georgia Tech. When Cumberland discovered the error, it was too late: They were contractually obligated to play, football team or no football team.

Tasting blood, Heisman wrote Cumberland’s football manager a pointed letter to ensure he wouldn’t flake: “I hearby offer you the sum of $500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Atlanta for your football team on the condition that you honor your contract by participating in and completing the Cumberland-Georgia Tech football game.” The offer was freighted with a legal threat: If Cumberland didn’t play, Georgia Tech would charge a $3000 forfeiture fee. The expense “would have been a severe blow to Cumberland,” says Sam Hatcher, author of Heisman’s First Trophy, in an interview with The Tennessean, “and probably would have closed the school, if you want to know the truth.”

Cumberland agreed to play. The old football manager assembled a team of at least 13 players (some sources say up to 19), consisting of fraternity brothers, law students, and boys from town. To avoid getting caught by university administrators—who were unaware of Heisman’s ultimatum—the team covered up their practice sessions by calling them “men’s choir meetings.”

Most of the volunteers had no knowledge of, or experience playing, football. “I played once in high school and once in prep school,” Cumberland’s Gentry Dugat admitted to Sports Illustrated in 1961. He wasn’t that interested in playing football anyway. He had signed up because he’d never ridden a passenger train before; it was basically a free vacation.

As Cumberland practiced, no one bothered to cook up trick plays or study the Xs and Os of fundamental football. Instead, coaches assigned each player a code name that corresponded with a specific vegetable. When the offense took to the line of scrimmage, the quarterback called plays by hollering the names of different crudités. “Plays sounded like this: ‘Turnip over lettuce. Hut one, hut two…'” reported Jay Searcy of the Chicago Tribune. “Cucumber to cauliflower. Hut one, hut two…”

The week before the big game, Cumberland’s rag-tag team tested their strategy in a meaningless exhibition game against Sewanee: The University of the South. They lost 107-0.

On October 7, 1916, more than 1000 fans passed through the turnstiles of Grant Field in Atlanta to watch the greatest slaughter in college football history. Cumberland was a wreck before the first whistle blew. Aside from their obvious shortfalls—a severe lack of strategy, knowledge, and, well, talent—Cumberland was already at a disadvantage because three of its players had gotten lost during a layover in Nashville and failed to chase down the connecting train to Georgia.

The game that ensued would turn out to be a mythical comedy of errors that is today riddled with fuzzy details. We know that Cumberland received the first kickoff, and, as the ball hurtled through the air, their quarterback attempted a block and was promptly coldcocked. Morris Gouger took the reins and gave Cumberland fans a ray of false hope when, on the team’s first drive, he rushed for three yards. (It would be one of Cumberland’s best plays all day.) Shortly after, Cumberland punted, Georgia Tech got the ball, and it scored on its first play.

When Cumberland got the pigskin back, it wasted no time and fumbled. Georgia scooped it and scrambled to the end zone. Touchdown. When Cumberland got the ball again, it fumbled a second time. Georgia picked it up and rushed to the goal line again. Touchdown. According to some accounts, Cumberland must have believed in the power of threes, because when the team received the ball again, they repeated the fumble-turnover-touchdown trifecta for a third time.

By halftime, the score was 126-0. Coach Heisman appeared underwhelmed during one pep talk. “You’re doing all right,” he lectured his team. “We’re ahead. But you just can’t tell what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves. They may spring a surprise.”

If Cumberland had tricks up their sleeves, they probably weren’t the tricks Heisman was expecting. At one point, a few frazzled Cumberland players marched over to Georgia Tech’s bench and plopped down; one grabbed a blanket and hid underneath it. Heisman accosted them and screamed, “You’re on the wrong side of the field!” But the boys shook their heads. “No, we’re not. We’ve been in there too many times, and we’ve had enough.”

Later on, two Cumberland players would jump the stadium fence.

Georgia Tech found time to goof off, too. “At one point, I remember, our tackle, Bill Fincher, took out his glass eye and threw it in the water bucket,” Tech’s George Griffin told The New York Times in 1986. “Some Cumberland boys came over and started to drink out of it, and they got a terrible fright.”

But nothing was as terrifying as the action on the field. In one (likely apocryphal) story, a Cumberland player fumbled and watched the ball bounce toward a teammate’s feet. The fumbler pleaded for his teammate to pick it up, but he was having none of it: “Fall on it yourself,” was the reported reply. “You dropped it.”

According to Sporting News, Cumberland’s Charlie Warwick would later brag that, “We were sort of getting to ’em in that last quarter.” Which, statistically, was kind of true. Georgia Tech scored 63 points in the first quarter but only managed 42 in the fourth quarter. But Warwick neglected to mention that Coach Heisman, in what can only be interpreted as a merciful bid for sainthood, had agreed to shorten the second half to 15 minutes.

The final score of 222-0 was so one-sided people must have expected the scoreboard to tip over. The statistics were obscene. Georgia Tech scored 32 touchdowns. One player, the All-American G.E. Strupper, scored eight times. He could have scored more, but at one point, Strupper ran through open field, stopped short of the goal line, gently placed the ball on the grass, and waited for a teammate to pick it up and walk into the end zone. Georgia Tech, which never threw a pass, finished with 501 rushing yards.

Cumberland, on the other hand, never earned a first down. It never crossed the 50-yard line. Five of their punts were returned for touchdowns. They lost at least nine fumbles. Their statistical superstar, Morris Gouger, finished the day with less than zero yards of offense. They threw 11 passes, and completed eight of them. (Technically, only two completions. Six of them were caught by the wrong team.)

To Cumberland’s credit, they weren’t the only big loser that season. Cockeyed mismatches were common during the sport’s nascent days: One week after Cumberland’s licking, Ohio State would rout Oberlin College, 128-0. And in Illinois, the Lane Technical School would give Cumberland’s dismal performance a run for its money in a blowout loss to St. Viator College.

That final score? 205-0.