This entry is cross-posted with blogTO.com.
Atomic Vaudeville’s Legoland is very good.
I would normally try to open this review with something a bit more clever. But anything I could come up with would pale next to the creativity, wit and sheer enthusiasm of this excellent play. It is a weird and warm-hearted piece of theatre, and you should go see it. Tonight, if you can.
Way back in 1984, A biologist named Justin O. Schmidt created a ranking scale to describe the pain associated with the sting of various insects, called the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. This would not be particularly interesting, had Schmidt not attached strange, wine-connoisseur-esque descriptions to each entry.
For example, the sting of the Sweat Bee is:
Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
While the Bullet Ant sting feels like:
Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.
Useful, since I will now avoid Bullet Ants like the plague.
I find this all very amusing, as I picture Dr. Schmidt inflicting a particular sting on himself, then staring thoughtfully at the heavens while considering the precise dimensions of his pain and preparing to capture it in evocative prose. Just goes to show- you’ve got to love what you do.
Sweet merciful heavens, it’s Friday. To celebrate, links for all!
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Oh man. I’m not going to say anything about this one, lest I put too fine a point on it:
Epic. Thanks to MN for the link.
Photo by sherseydc.
The eggheads at GE’s Global Research Nanotechnology lab have come up with some new superhydrophobic materials. While this undoubtedly has a variety of important industry applications, all you need to know is that it makes water bounce. To the high-speed camera!
Cool. I need to get a three-piece suit made of this stuff. Then I can go to the beach and blow. People’s. Minds. Via Gizmodo.
The long knives are sure out for capitalism these days. From a financial system in crisis to the inexplicable idiocy of CEOs, the opponents of our gonzo market have much to celebrate.
As for myself, I’m a fan of the free market. It’s good for me, good for liberty, and, provided we make the appropriate public interventions to ensure nobody is screwed over, the least onerous of the available options. Still, with the system teetering on the brink of meltdown, it’s as good a time as any to take a look at some of its most cherished assumptions.
Take this study from the University of Arizona. It argues that specialization does not improve individual productivity in any colonies. Fans of Adam Smith will recall that specialization is a pretty important part of his theory of capitalism. He argued, in his iconic pin factory example, that workers who focus on a particular task are more productive than generalists. Ants don’t agree. Said researcher Anna Dornhaus:
My results indicate that at least in this species, a task is not primarily performed by individuals that are especially adapted to it (by whatever mechanism). This result implies that if social insects are collectively successful, this is not obviously for the reason that they employ specialized workers who perform better individually.
Something to think about. Would we be more economically effective if we had a lot of skills, as opposed to a narrow job description? Specialization is the foundation of modern mass manufacturing, which is currently in a sorry state. So would greater generalization help us get the economy moving again?
Probably not on its own, since our economy is considerably more complex than an Ant hill. But as we move into an uncertain future, we can’t really afford to overlook anything. Even the humble ant.
Photo courtesy of PHGCOM.
Greedy auto execs, Hitler’s lone gonad, and sweet mammoth rides. Welcome to Thursday, all.
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