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A Flexible Phone Plan
 You say it's only a paper phone...
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The properties and feel of paper are the inspiration for a revolutionary new type of mobile electronic device. It is called the PaperPhone and it is the creation of
Dr. Roel Vertegaal, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Human Media Laboratory at Queen's University in Kingston. The pocket-sized device is ulta-thin, only nine-and-a-half centimetres diagonally and is as flexible as a sheet of paper. It is comprised of two layers; one is the e-ink screen, also found in e-readers; the other is a printed flexible circuit with five bend sensors. This allows the user to bend the device in various ways, similar to turning pages, in order to launch a desired application - phone, music player or book reader. The idea is that the PaperPhone will feel like holding a sheet of paper - there are no buttons to push or screens to touch. It is believed this technology could change the way we interact with computers.
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Juvenile Delinquintasaurus
Tarbosaurs bataar was the Mongolian cousin of
Tyrannosaurus rex. It lived at the same time and grew to the same fearsome size, with adults exceeding 10 meters in length and weighing up to six tons. The discovery of a remarkably well preserved and rare juvenile
Tarbosaurus, however, suggests that they were very different creatures from adults.
Dr. Lawrence Witmer, a Professor of Anatomy and Paleontology at Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine, has led a team that has examined this fossil. They found that the two-year old carnivore was much more lightly built than the adults - not just smaller, but proportionally much more delicate and fragile. This suggests to them that it led a different lifestyle than its parents, taking small, swift and agile prey rather than wrestling with huge herbivores. Dr. Witmer thinks that this allowed the juveniles to occupy a different ecological niche and helped it avoid the occasionally cannibalistic adults.
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The Bacteria of my Enemy is my Friend
 Anopheles albimanus mosquito feeding on a human host
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Dr. George Dimopoulos and his colleagues in the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Malaria Research Institute have discovered what may be a new ally in the fight against malaria. It's a naturally occurring symbiotic bacteria that lives in the gut of the mosquitos that carry the malaria parasite. This bacteria, which they found in a small sampling of mosquitos from Zambia, produces toxins that kill 99% of the malaria parasites when the mosquito ingests them it in a blood meal from an infected person. They hope to find a way to spread this bacteria more widely through the mosquito population.
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Right-handed Teeth
 Red markings highlight the scratch marks made on prehistoric teeth indicating handedness. Courtesy Dr. David Frayer.
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If you are left-handed, you are truly in the minority among humans. In fact, the ratio of right-handed to left-handed people is roughly 9:1 in every culture. So scientists have wondered where this preference for one hand over the other comes from, and just how far back it goes. Now new research by
Dr. David Frayer, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kansas, has found that right-handedness prevailed more than 500,000 years ago. By studying scratch marks on teeth from human fossils found in Spain and Croatia, scientists were able to determine handedness. The angle of the marks, accidentally made on the outside of the incisor and canine teeth by stone tools, are indicative of use by one hand over the other. From the number of human fossils studied, the ratio of right-handed to left-handed people is generally the same as it is today. Because handedness is also related to the brain's lateral organization, the research surmises that language proficiency in humans also goes back at least a half million years in our evolutionary past.
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Sex, Drugs and Sea Slime
In her new book
Sex, Drugs and Sea Slime, The Oceans Oddest Creatures and Why they Matter, marine scientist Dr. Ellen Prager has set out to generate interest in the oceans by describing some of the more unusual creatures that live in them, and documenting their often bizarre lifestyles and mating habits. From the smallest - phytoplankton and zooplankton - to the largest - sharks and whales - the oceans are alive with epic battles, romance and curious behaviour, as the various creatures fight for survival. Yet, Dr. Prager demonstrates they all have a purpose in the ocean's web of life, and contribute to humankind in many ways. They are a food supply, a driver of economies, and a valuable source for medical research. Her hope is to share her passion and wonder for what lives beneath the waves and instill in everyone the idea that we need to take greater care of the world's oceans.
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Theme music bed copyright Raphaël Gluckstein, Creative Commons License by-nc-nd-2.0
Saturdays at noon, Mondays at 11:00 p.m., Wednesdays at 3:00 p.m. (in some markets only)
You say it's only a paper phone...
Red markings highlight the scratch marks made on prehistoric teeth indicating handedness. Courtesy Dr. David Frayer.
We're coming to Halifax in early June for our annual Quirks Question Roadshow, and we want to see you there. Stay tuned to this space for details.
Saturdays at noon, Mondays at 11:00 p.m., Wednesdays at 3:00 p.m. and Fridays at 5:00 a.m. (ET)
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