10 ms·
Human sperm steer with second harmonics of the flagellar beat
- emmelaich 9y agoWe have an early leader for the IgNobel prize. (even though quite fascinating)
- ucaetano 9y agoNot really, there are potential applications: Higher beat frequency components exist in other flagellated cells; therefore, this steering mechanism might be widespread and could inspire the design of synthetic microswimmers.
- conistonwater 9y agoNot really, IgNobel doesn't mean it has to be useless: > The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology. (https://www.improbable.com/ig/ https://www.improbable.com/ig/)
- c3534l 9y agoThis is why homeopaths and ghost hunters don't sweep every year. It's not an award to shame the recipient, it's to highlight unusual or befuddling, but legitimate, scientific research.
- conistonwater 9y agoIndeed. Just for example, the levitating frog experiment is a very clear example of just that.
- slededit 9y agoYet VW won for: CHEMISTRY PRIZE [GERMANY] — Volkswagen, for solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested. REFERENCE: "EPA, California Notify Volkswagen of Clean Air Act Violations", U.S. Environmental Protection Agency news release, September 18, 2015.
- macawfish 9y agoWho's gonna invent an ultrasonic contraceptive?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tinix 9y agohttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/407106 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/407106 it's been known since at least 1977. https://m.timesofindia.com/home/science/Ultrasound-waves-as-contraceptive/articleshow/5923438.cms https://m.timesofindia.com/home/science/Ultrasound-waves-as-... there's another company that confirms it works, yet denounces it for sake of supporting another contraceptive method they have produced that uses radiation. https://www.parsemus.org/projects/ultrasound/ https://www.parsemus.org/projects/ultrasound/
- OtterCoder 9y agoThat is an incredibly difficult title to parse if you are from a certain background. I spent about a minute trying to imagine how someone might have made a human/cow chimera, and what that might have to do with harmonics. In my defense, I had read the following article about rat/human chimeras earlier today: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4867891/scientists-give-rats-consciousness-by-implanting-them-with-tiny-human-brains/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/4867891/scientists-give-rats-c...
- King-Aaron 9y agoBecause articles from The Sun generally make me grind my teeth, I quickly hunted down the study they reference: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23995685 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23995685
- minikomi 9y agoHuman sperm use second harmonics of the flagellar beat to steer
- evanb 9y agoA sentence where you begin parsing one way, find it it impossible to complete, and have to backtrack substantially (so that the intended meaning changes drastically) is called a garden path sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence My favorite is "The old man the boat" :)
- propman 9y agoGreat read! The see also links have a lot of other peculiar sentences that I've come across frequently but never considered they were constructed deliberately nor that there were actual terms describing the oddities.
- beaconstudios 9y agoHa, it's like a branch misprediction but for language, very cool
- 9y ago
- exabrial 9y agoI know what all of those words mean, but not in this combination. Props to whoever wrote the title, I'm clicking/reading.
- firebones 9y agoLet's start a band...that title could describe a new musical genre, one with the hip lyrics set to the flagellar beat.
- RichardCA 9y agoThis is an old NOVA episode about intelligent design but it has a nice explanation of the bacterial flagellum. It starts at around 1:07:00 in the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HZzGXnYL5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HZzGXnYL5I
- thret 9y agoSo could someone theoretically produce music that if played very loudly during coitus would also act as a contraceptive?
- nabla9 9y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PVal8Fy7CM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PVal8Fy7CM
- peterburkimsher 9y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
- SN76477 9y agoI hope one of these links are Rush.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- IshKebab 9y agoYou're joking but I think some people might think you are serious.
- bartkappenburg 9y agoIf you're interested in the scripts (python!) and movies (xyz files for molecular representation) they used for analysis: https://zenodo.org/record/884626#.WgV1XFz81R4 https://zenodo.org/record/884626#.WgV1XFz81R4
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoNice that they provide open data: "Data availability High-speed video recordings, extracted data, and analysis supporting the findings of this study are available in “zenodo” with the identifier doi: 10.5281/zenodo.884626."