Measurement of belly composition variability in pigs by in vivo computed tomographic scanning.

“The belly region composition of a representative commercial pig sample of 130 castrates was examined by in vivo spiral computed tomographic (CT) scanning. The lean meat percentage, the muscle/fat tissue ratio within the total body and separately within the bacon part were estimated by image analysis. The lean meat content of the total body was determined by the EU reference method. A correlation of r = 0.97 was found between lean meat content of the total body determined by CT estimation and the slaughtering results. The pigs were divided into seven groups on the basis of their lean meat content. The muscle percentage of the bacon part was 26% and 67%, respectively, in the two groups representing the two extremes of lean meat percentage (36% and 67%, respectively). The total volume of the bacon part was relatively constant (8.6 +/- 1 dm3) in the groups representing different lean meat categories. At the same time, the fat tissue volume of the bacon part was considerably higher while its muscle tissue volume was markedly lower in the group of the ...

The latest state-of-the-art night-vision helmet should probably come with a warning label: “May cause uncontrollable laughter.” Despite its goofy, high-tech-Frankenstein appearance, the helmet actually makes a significant improvement in night vision by doubling the field of view compared to—and making that view much sharper than—the view through current goggles.

Called the High Resolution Night Vision System (HRNVS), these helmets are designed to give U.S. Air Force pilots higher-resolution images and an over-80-degree field of view, which is much better than the fuzzy, 40-degree field of view of conventional goggles. With the helmet in place, a pilot simply flips the viewers over his eyes to peer into the night. Each eyepiece is fed a synced image from two digital night-vision sensors. In addition to seeing more, the pilot also receives a crisper image because the helmet is programmed to enhance edges and contrasts, says SA Photonics, the company that developed the device. And as he spies another aircraft, a HUD-like digital overlay tells him how high it is and how fast it’s moving; and he can even record what he’s seeing as a video.

UPDATE: It appears I’ll be on closer to 8:30 or 8:40 ET than to 8 ET…

Tonight I’ll be going on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” where Chris Hayes is hosting (in place of Lawrence O’Donnell). The topic is birthers and conspiracy theories, and I’ll be talking about my Mother Jones article alongside Jonathan Kay, author of the new book Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground. Show airs around 8pm, although I believe our segment will be later than that.

By the way, here’s O’Donnell with the original birther Orly Taitz last night, who quite predictably, appears to have gone through a “cognitive dissonance” resolution/motivated reasoning process and found a new way to rationalize her ongoing denial that President Obama was born in the U.S.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The more I think about it, the more the birthers and the Seekers (described in the Mother Jones piece) have in common. Both had adopted a worldview that essentially required them to bet it all on a single development: The Seekers had predicted that the world would end on a particular day, and the birthers had bet that Obama’s long-form birth certificate would have something wrong with it, not exist, etc.

And then, when the day and data finally arrived and the facts didn’t fit their theory (the world didn’t end, Obama had a perfectly good birth certificate) they of course couldn’t give up their prior views–to which they had committed themselves emotionally, financially, etc. These views had quite literally become a physical part of their brains. So what did they do?

Well, you saw the video.

The Case for Cursive:

For centuries, cursive handwriting has been an art. To a growing number of young people, it is a mystery.

The sinuous letters of the cursive alphabet, swirled on countless love letters, credit card slips and banners above elementary school chalk boards are going the way of the quill and inkwell. With computer keyboards and smartphones increasingly occupying young fingers, the gradual death of the fancier ABC’s is revealing some unforeseen challenges.

Not too surprising. But here’s a question: does anyone out there have problems writing by hand, period? I do so little on pen/pencil & paper* that I have been noticing some strangeness in my non-signature writing. Usually when I have to send a letter where I have to write out the address, or perhaps to write something on a card. A lot of our day to day tasks are implicit/subconscious. Our “reflexes” emerge through repetition. But what happens when “basic” tasks become exceptional events? I’ve probably gotten much better at typing with my fingers on my smartphone’s screen at this point than printing out letters. As for cursive, don’t even go there….

* Supermarket shopping lists are now a constantly updated Google Doc which I access in my ...

What’s the News: Please back away from the armadillo, ma’am. You can watch them from a distance, even take pictures, but don’t play with or eat Texas’s state mammal: scientists have just confirmed that it is a source of leprosy infections in humans.

How the Heck:

About 150–250 cases of leprosy, which is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae and results in nerve damage if not treated early, are diagnosed in the US each year. Two-thirds of the patients turned out to have contracted the disease abroad in places like Africa, the Philippines, and Brazil, where it’s not uncommon. But a third of the patients had never traveled to locales with a history of leprosy. Many of them lived in the southern U.S., where armadillos roam and are occasionally eaten for meat.
Armadillos are known to carry leprosy—in fact, they are the only wild animals other than humans upon which the picky M. leprae can stand to live—and scientists suspected that these anomalous cases were due to contact with the little armored tootsie rolls. But it was hard to prove as long as both humans and armadillos were carrying fairly generic, readily available strains of ...

Via fellow Discover blogger Sean Carroll, I came across Jorge Cham’s podcast/comic/video about cosmology. I’m embedding it here, not just because it’s a very good summary of where we stand in understanding the stuff of the cosmos, but because Cham–he of PhD comics–has done something fascinating here. He has combined three different media into something new. I think, on the whole, it works very well. It moves a bit too fast for my eye sometimes, and can get a little herky jerky. But a living comic illustration of a scientist talking? Me likes.

Dark Matters from PHD Comics on Vimeo.

Hey, let me know if you get tired of these amazing, hypnotic time lapse videos of the night sky.

No, wait: don’t tell me, because as long as they’re this cool I’ll keep posting ‘em anyway.

This is Randy Halverson’s video "Orion", named for obvious reasons. Well, one reason isn’t so obvious: the camera mount that allows him to do the ultra-slow pan and tilt is called "Orion" as well.

My favorite parts are 30 seconds in, where the Moon and stars of Gemini are behind the mesa, and 2:09 in, when he has a little meta fun. Randy also did the video "Sub Zero" which I posted a little while back.

I love love love these videos. And I have yet another very lovely one to post soon, too. But I don’t want to spoil you with too many all at once.

Related posts:

- Australian Outback time lapse
- Dust, from the desert below to the galaxy above
- Stunning winter sky timelapse video: Sub Zero
- OK, because I like y’all: bonus aurora timelapse video
- Sidereal Motion
- Amazing wide-angle time lapse night sky ...

My friend Sheril Kirshenbaum at The Intersection is going solo and joining the crew at Wired Science Blogs. Since I have other friends there the RSS addition will be natural. They better take care of her there. I know from first hand experience that the editors in these digs pay attention to the needs of the bloggers. In any case, Sheril has been someone with whom I’ve had extremely positive interactions with every since we shared space on ScienceBlogs, so I’m definitely excited for her and will keep an eye on what she’s up to. You should too!

The rivers and lakes of Africa are filled with conversations that you cannot hear or take part in. These chats are conducted by fishes called mormyrids or elephantfishes, which can produce and sense electric fields. They use their abilities to navigate through murky waters, hunt their prey, and talk to one another. It’s clearly a successful lifestyle, for there are over 200 species of mormyrid alive today.

Bruce Carlson from Washington University in St Louis thinks that the origin of these diverse species lay in the diversity of their electric songs. Different species of mormyrid communicate with different electric signals, which work as badges of identity. When they’re ready to mate, they find partners of their own kind by listening out for their preferred electric dialect.

The evolution of these diverse signals hinged in turn on changes in the mormyrids’ brains and sense organs. These allowed them to pick up subtler differences in their electric signals and talk to each other in more varied ways. This opened up a world of communication, but it was also the mormyrid equivalent of the Tower of Babel. By gaining the ability ...