TILT: Things I Learned Today
Since I'm a curious guy, I often write down things that I notice during the day. Usually, at the end of the day I spend a few minutes to look these things up and write them down in my notes as TILT, Things I Learned Today.
This week was an especially curious week. I ran across a couple of interesting things... and of course, each thing I looked up led to another question. Here are three TILT questions from my week.
● There were several news articles about electric eels leaping out of the water to shock their prey. (This captured my fancy partly because it's quite a striking image, but ALSO because of the connection with Alexander von Humboldt
 |
| An electric eel at rest, not leaping. But it could. |
1. What other kinds of fish leap from the water to attack their prey?
● I also saw a YouTube video that mentioned the use of X-rays to destroy hair follicles to permanently remove hair from your body. (Note: This turned out to be a really bad idea.)
2. What other interesting / odd uses did people (unwisely) use X-rays for during the past 100 years? (You don't have to list them all, just one unusual use that you didn't know about before.)
● During a concert this week in a local church, I noticed something on the ceiling of the apse that was a surprise (see below). I didn't recognize it, so I looked it up, and realized that there was a strong connection with the name of the church.
3. What's the name of the church where the concert was held?
Can you figure these out?
They're great examples of what it means to follow-up and satisfy on your curiosity.
When you figure them out, be sure to comment about WHAT motivated you and HOW you found your insights?
Stay curious, my friends. Search on!
► Fish
ReplyDelete[aerial predatory fish] ... this was me overthinking it again; the first page in Google gave me a pile of guff.
[Fish that leap] ... I knew I was going too simple; and sure, I did get fish that jump from their bowl, and fish escaping predators, but my fifth result in Google gave me the desired result: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28483-the-first-fish-to-leap-out-of-water-and-attack-prey-from-air/
► X-ray
The prompt is about xray & unusual; so my search ...
[crazy X-ray {autofill: stories}] ... gave me many yarns about people with stomach ache complaints having weird stuff in their guts.
I wanted to pursue [crazy X-ray], so took control with ...
[crazy X-ray experiment] ... Google got it right with http://theweek.com/articles/472881/5-crazy-inventions-from-mind-nikola-tesla
► picture of blue something (bit blind)
The picture links to https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lF-PdiY40Ac/V1fYq-VlXkI/AAAAAAAAyqA/KkHeZq3dMvs0V9SDadChcg_H2Gu64xVDgCLcB/s1600/Mary%2Bin%2BSF.jpg
The name of the snap 'Mary in SF.jpg' gives a clue; perhaps it was taken when visiting your friend Mary? But; or better ...
Use the powerful images.google.com
I dropped the link into the search box ...
Matching images came from the same web site ... http://samuelberger.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/mission-dolores-basilica-now.html
But I was surprised that this search, while correct, only gave two results.
Cheers
1. I Googled fish catch prey in air and found this link from National Geographic about fish preying on birds:
ReplyDeletehttp://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/13/freshwater-fish-leap-into-air-prey-on-birds/
in the search results, I saw the term “amphibious fish” so I search “amphibious fish prey an found this open access article from the journal Integrative and comparative biology.
Kinematics of terrestrial capture of prey by the eel-catfish Channallabes apus.
http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/2/258.full.pdf+html?sid=30c0879c-b2fe-46c1-b657-4b300f0b11a8
2. Here is one that I remember from my childhood. X-rays used to fit shoes.
https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/shoefittingfluor/shoe.htm
http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm
3. Because I am a Catholic, I knew that the image represent Mother of Sorrows or Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So I search those with San Jose, since I thought it had to be in that area. Nothing came up so I used an alternate term “Seven Dolors” and found Seven Dolors RC Parish Hall Mountain View. Then I hit a dead end. I checked the Diocesan websites for both San Jose and Monterey and found nothing. I wonder if this is a parish that merged with St. Joseph and all that remains is a building used as a hall?
My last effort was a search for concert seven dolors mountain view. Nothing.
I spent about an hour on this – mostly on the third question. I was just about ready to give up when I noticed that you had titled the image Mary-SF and it hit me, Mission Dolores. I think you were at the Chanticleer Concert at the Cathedral Basilica. I did not find the exact image, but everything else fits. That took me a bout 10 minutes, but should have been my first guess because I lived in San Francisco for ten years.
1) did a search for leaping fish attack prey and found out that the needlefish is one of the only fish besides the electric eel to leap out of water to attack their prey. They sound pretty dangerous and there have been several deaths reported of people getting killed by being stabbed by a needlefish. Many articles refer to their jumping out to get prey - https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28483-the-first-fish-to-leap-out-of-water-and-attack-prey-from-air/
ReplyDeleteWe did see a link to a video of an african tiger fish leaping into the air to catch prey. Didn't realize that there were so few fish that did this.
2). being older than Anne I knew this one but she didn't x-rays used to be used in shoe stores to help ensure a proper fit of the shoe.
We will post question 3 tomorrow.
Good day, Dr. Russell and everyone.
ReplyDeleteFor Q1
[leaping fish attack prey]
Needlefish are not the only ones that can leap above the water’s surface. Their relatives from the Beloniformes family, such as flying fish and halfbeaks, do it too, but for them the manoeuvre is a way to evade predators rather than attack prey.
[Beloniformes family leap water]
Flying fish
For Q2:
[ x rays wrongful use], [x ray hair removal], [x-ray weird uses]
Hair removal and other banned use. Wikipedia article
[x-ray unknown uses]
THE X MEANS UNKNOWN."...the x-ray was named the most important modern scientific discovery by nearly 50,000 people in a Science Museum of London poll; even penicillin came in second...Harmless until Thomas Edison’s assistant Clarence Dally, who had worked extensively with X-rays, died of skin cancer in 1904 that people started taking the health concerns about the new technology seriously. "
[x-ray around(4) Edison] Edison afraid of X-Rays
Nikola Tesla and the Discovery of X-rays
For Q3, Search by image your image. Results give: Mission Dolores Basilica
[Mission Dolores Basilica]
Misión San Francisco de Asís was founded June 29, 1776, under the direction of Father Junipero Serra (We have a SearchResearch about him)
Samuel Berger was a master woodcarver who emigrated to San Francisco in 1904 from Bucharest, Romania
[concert Mission Dolores Basilica]
Mission Dolores calendar Basilica - Chanticleer concert
[Mission Dolores Chanticleer concert]
Chanticleer Concer 2010; Recorded Saturday, June 5, 2010 at Mission Dolores in San Francisco, CA
Chanticleer began singing in the Basilica more than 30 yrs ago
Answers
1. What other kinds of fish leap from the water to attack their prey?
A: Beloniformes family
2. What other interesting / odd uses did people (unwisely) use X-rays for during the past 100 years?
A:Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes
3. What's the name of the church where the concert was held?
A: Mission Dolores Basilica.Commonly known as "Mission Dolores" owing to the presence of a nearby creek named Arroyo de los Dolores, or "Creek of Sorrows."
3. Search by image took me here (to the woodcarver)
ReplyDeletehttp://samuelberger.blogspot.co.za/2013/01/mission-dolores-basilica-now.html
and Dolores to Mary of Sorrows here
http://www.behindthename.com/name/dolores
ReplyDelete1. Well, not fish, but dwellers of the briney deep, are orcas which can do this very thing.
[fish aerial attack on prey] finds needlefish do this
2. [unusual x ray uses] has lots of hits. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/57491332720082597/ I did not know that diamonds do not show up via x ray.
Best hit: http://mypureform.com/unusual-x-rays/ A 777 is x rayed. As is a bus full of people.
3. Image search finds Mission Dolores Basilica is the place.
THis was fun...jon
After reading Jon comment, searched this. Very interesting and fun
Delete[X-rays around(3) diamonds]
X-ray imaging and diamond
[xrays diamond]
Is it true that real diamonds don't show up on an x-ray?
[Usos rayos x]
9 innovadoras aplicaciones de los rayos X
Like these 2:
X-Rays Made with Scotch Tape
[rayos x jamon pata negra]
Científicos utilizan el Sincrotrón de Grenoble para identificar a los imitadores de los productos de Jabugo
Anne and Deb answering question 3) boy did we struggle on this one! Neither of us had any background knowledge of the image (I knew it was Mary; Anne didn't know that) and Anne's background knowledge of the area failed her on this one! When we came up with the answer (after reading other's answers and going back to figure it out) Anne realized she had been at the Mission Delores Basilica! Where we went wrong was not being diligent enough and discounting the results we got when we uploaded the image in google image search. I saw the result for Samuel Berger and didn't read it. We tried many other things and couldn't come up with an answer but when we uploaded picture again and saw the result for Samuel Berger we scrolled through the site http://samuelberger.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html and there it was! The same picture you posted. So you were there for a concert. Taught us to check results more thoroughly and not to discount a result so fast.
ReplyDelete