From Fabulon: Life on a Fabulous Planet

I am having trouble picking out an adjective for the decor of this room....

One comment:

She comes in colours everywhere, she combs her hair. She's like a RAINBOW!

The True Origins of Superman Revealed

whatever a writing system is called when it's not an alphabet?

Is it pictograms like Chinese?

I'm only into the second season of Lost. There is some odd stuff going on in that show.

Heh. Heheheheheheheheheh!

Winnie The Pooh On Swine Flu (PIC)

Don't click on this if you consider sacred all things Pooh....

I missed yoga class this morning, but I'm not broken up about it because it was the Kundalini class that I don't particularly care for. I can catch another class tonight, I think.

Is it pictograms like Chinese?

I don't think so, but can't swear to anything either way. Which is why I tried to cover myself!

Edit: It's apparently a syllabic alphabet: [link]

There are 2 people in my dept here and neither of them is my boss. To go home or not to go home, that is the question...

Something else that scientists used to think was exclusive to humans has been found in other species....

Some vocal-mimicking animals, particularly parrots, can move to a musical beat

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Researchers at Harvard University have found that humans aren't the only ones who can groove to a beat -- some other species can dance, too. This capability was previously believed to be specific to humans. The research team found that only species that can mimic sound seem to be able to keep a beat, implying an evolutionary link between the two capacities.

...

Schachner and her colleagues closely studied Alex, a well-known African grey parrot who passed away shortly after the study, and Snowball, a sulphur-crested cockatoo whose humanlike dancing behavior had led to online fame.

"Our analyses showed that these birds' movements were more lined up with the musical beat than we'd expect by chance," says Schachner. "We found strong evidence that they were synchronizing with the beat, something that has not been seen before in other species."

The researchers noted that these two birds had something in common: an excellent ability to mimic sound.

"It had recently been theorized that vocal mimicry might be related to the ability to move to a beat," says Schachner. "The particular theory was that natural selection for vocal mimicry resulted in a brain mechanism that was also needed for moving to a beat. This theory made a really specific prediction: Only animals that can mimic sound should be able to keep a beat."

To test this prediction, Schachner needed data from a large variety of animals--so she turned to a novel source of data, the YouTube video database. Schachner systematically searched the database for videos of animals moving with the beat of the music, including vocal mimics such as parrots and vocal non-mimics such as dogs and cats.

Schachner analyzed the videos frame-by-frame, using the same analyses applied to the case-study birds. Criteria included the animal's speed compared to the speed of the music and alignment with individual beats. Potentially "fake" videos were omitted, where music was added to the video after the fact, or the animal was following visual movement.

Wouldn't it be awesome to be a scientist whose job is to analyze YouTube videos of animals doing wacky stuff?

Ah, I missed the Amharic questions.

my boss is gone. piles of work, not gone. motivation, mostly gone. panic, not gone.