Me Caveman

While on vacation this month, we visited the Smithsonian in DC.  In the human evolution exhibit, there was a display of a human face morphing into a prehistorical ancestor's face.  Turns out there is a free ipad app that does this!  So here I am as caveman ancient and caveman super-ancient:

(the app just keeps your eyes and mouth and uses the same picture for the rest)

More on Rainbows

In earlier post, I talked about the questionable nature of the "7 colors of the rainbows".   But I failed to talk about why the bands of colors are uneven, never mind how many there actually are.  In the picture below I have overlayed an enlarged picture of a real rainbow and a graph of the sensitivities of our three cones.  As you can see, the narrow sharpness of yellow and the wide blending of blue into violet and red into orange come from the ranges over which the individual cones are sensitive!

There is some evidence that a few women (need two X chromosomes for this theory to work) are born with four kind of cones (like most birds!) and can discriminate even more bands of colors that the rest of us.

Dogs, on the other hand, only have two types of cones and so are partially color blind.

Existential Reflection on the Human Condition or Just a Bakery?

This one goes out to my buddy E.D. who will probably lecture me about why this is NOT funny next I see him:


The Daily Pain of French Existence?

From Within or Without

While on vacation on the beach, I observe an extremely sun-burnt man smoking a cigarette on the beach.  I lean over to my cousin and whisper "Cancer - either from within or without!"

From the NIH:
"While the symptoms of sunburn are usually temporary (such as red skin that is painful to the touch), the skin damage is often permanent and can have serious long-term health effects, including skin cancer." and
"Smoking is a leading cause of cancer and death from cancer."





What if people could see these microscopic events in real time, would that help?