Curio Cabinet

It's Flashback Friday, and almost the 4th of July! Enjoy these curios in honor of the holiday. 
If you are a fan of fireworks (like the ones many of our American readers will soon see on July 4th), then you are a fan of pyrotechnical chemical reactions. The first firework was set off over a thousand years ago by a Chinese monk who stuffed a piece of bamboo with gunpowder and threw it into a fire. Modern fireworks are remarkably similar: a shell, an explosive, and a fuse. The only advances have to do with the extravagant colors and shapes you see today. Individual fireworks are either a tube or sphere containing explosives with a time-delayed fuse. Inside the explosives are small colored balls nicknamed “stars.” They are what you see blazing through the sky after the initial burst. As the "stars" absorb heat energy from the exploding gunpowder, their electrons move from a stable to an excited state. This causes them to release excess energy in the form of light as they move to a lower-energy state. The materials in the “star” determine what color light is emitted. Blue is a mixture of copper chloride compounds, red is a combination of strontium and lithium salts, and yellow is simply sodium nitrate. Mixtures of these primary colors create secondary colors like purple and green, just like in grade school art class. BOOM goes the chemistry!

 
[Image description: Fireworks exploding against a black background.] Credit & copyright: DeltaWorks, Pixabay

Keep your head in the game! One June 23, researchers from Michigan State University published a paper in the journal Nature describing a new, flexible sensor that can detect concussions in athletes. Concussions are common in high-impact sports like football and hockey, with short-to-long-term symptoms ranging from memory loss to seizures. When just a single concussion can cause lasting damage and the best treatment is an early one, it’s important to be able to accurately detect when one occurs. While there are already helmets that use accelerometers to detect concussions, they have been found to be only moderately accurate, sometimes giving false readings because the device tracks the movement of the helmet instead of the wearer’s head directly. However, the newly developed sensor is attached directly to the body of the wearer, eliminating that source of error.
 
The sensor, which is placed on the nape of the neck as a patch, is composed of a thin piece of piezoelectric film that generates an electric charge when under tension or compression. Electrodes connect the film to a computer which keeps track of the charges produced, and the information can be analyzed for the type of sudden movements that result in concussions. Researchers attached the device to a dummy that was also equipped with a separate set of accelerometers and gyroscopes. When the dummy was dropped from two feet up in the air to simulate sports-related impacts, the results showed that the new device was 90 percent accurate at detecting potentially concussion-causing movements. The next step for the researchers will be to make the device wireless, so that it could be easily worn by athletes. No doubt this device could make a big impact in the sports world.

[Image description: A football player wearing a maroon jersey tackles a player wearing a white jersey.] Credit & copyright: KeithJJ, Pixabay
 

There’s more than gold buried in the Yukon. On June 21, gold miners digging in the permafrost of the Yukon uncovered a shockingly-well-preserved, mummified baby mammoth that is around 30,000 years old. The miners were working in the gold fields in the territory of the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin people when they made the discovery. One of the workers, operating a front-end loader, felt the machine strike an unexpected object while digging near a creek. Upon further investigation, workers found the mammoth buried in the mud. The mining work was halted until two geologists could arrive on site to secure the animal’s remains, which could be the best preserved and most complete mammoth remains ever found in North America. Measuring around 4.5 feet long, the mammoth appears to have been female and was around a month old when it died. Remarkably, she still has most of her hair and skin after millennia underground.
 
Based on her stomach contents, the mammoth seems to have been grazing shortly before death, possibly getting stuck in the mud after wandering off from her mother while feeding. The baby mammoth has been given the name "Nun cho ga,” which means "big baby animal" in the Hän language. Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in Chief Roberta Joseph said in a statement, “This is as a remarkable recovery for our First Nation, and we look forward to collaborating with the Yukon government on the next steps in the process for moving forward with these remains in a way that honours our traditions, culture, and laws. We are thankful for the Elders who have been guiding us so far and the name they provided. We are committed to respectfully handling Nun cho ga as she has chosen now to reveal herself to all of us.” Grant Zazula, a paleontologist for the Yukon government, also stated, "As an ice age paleontologist, it has been one of my life long dreams to come face to face with a real woolly mammoth. That dream came true today. Nun cho ga is beautiful and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered in the world. I am excited to get to know her more." It’s a second life for this woolly young one.

 
[Image description: A mummified baby mammoth discovered in the Yukon lies on a blue tarp.] Credit & copyright: Government of Yukon, image cropped for size

For these frogs, every leap is a leap of faith. A team of scientists have found that the reason some tiny species of frogs in Brazil can’t jump well is due to their undersized ear canals. The frogs in question are pumpkin toadlets, which are native to Brazil and are known for their bright colors and extremely diminutive size. Even when fully grown, they’re small enough to sit snugly on a person’s fingertip. Technically, these frogs can jump; it’s the landing that’s the tricky part. When these tiny toadlets take a leap, they instantly lose control of their bodies, often landing upside down. To figure out why, an international team consisting of scientists from the U.S. and Brazil looked at 147 species of frogs and toads to see what anatomical differences may be responsible. It turns out, the answer lies in the animals’ ear canals, which in the case of pumpkin toadlets are so small that they’re practically non-functional.
 
The ear canals of most frogs allow them to orient themselves quickly in mid-air. This is made possible by the fast-moving fluids within the inner ear that trigger nerve cells. However, the ear canals of pumpkin toadlets are so small and contain so little fluid that they cannot get a grasp on their orientation in the time between jumping and landing. So how have these frogs managed to not only survive but thrive without being able to effectively perform the one activity that others of their kind are so well-known for? The short answer is: these little guys just don’t need to jump much. Edward Stanley, one of the scientists involved in the research, told the press, “They’re not jumping around a lot, and when they do, they’re probably not that worried about landing, because they’re doing it out of desperation. They get more benefits from being small than they lose from their inability to stick a landing.” In addition, the researchers say that these frogs have other adaptations that help them survive despite their lack of acrobatic ability. For example, some of these frogs have bright warning colors, camouflage, or simply thicker skin. That last one might come in handy if other frogs decide to tease them about their jumping skills.

 
[Image description: A tiny toad sits on a human hand.] Credit & copyright: Marys_fotos, Pixabay

Fashion might look a little fishy in the future, and that’s a good thing. A Tampa-based company, Inversa Leathers, has been making a splash in both the fashion world and the world of conservation by selling wallets and other accessories made from lionfish leather. Although native to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, lionfish have long been wreaking havoc in the Atlantic and Caribbean, where they were introduced by people. As invaders to the ecosystem, lionfish have earned a reputation for fast destruction. Within five weeks of entering a coral reef system, a single one of the spiky, venomous creatures can devour 79 percent of juvenile marine life in the area. Compounding the problem is the fact that a single female lionfish can release around 25,000 eggs per day, so their population increases fast. Not only does this devastate native fish populations, it also destroys coral reefs. Since many of the fish preyed upon by lionfish eat algae that grows on reefs, their absence leads to algae overgrowths that suffocate coral.
 
An avid diver, Inversa Leathers co-founder Aarav Chavda was shocked by the destruction caused by lionfish. To do his part to help, Chavda teamed up with his friend Roland Salatino to start a company which buys wild-caught lionfish by the thousands each day. Once purchased, the fish are processed for meat, which is sold to restaurants around Tampa. The hides are then taken to a tannery in Ohio where they’re turned into a workable leather, which can be used to make anything from wallets to watch straps. In this way, Inversa is creating an economic incentive to go after lionfish. Chavda told The Guardian, “A lot of the geographies, especially the lower-income Caribbean area, have no market at all [for lionfish]—and so this fish is not only destroying the coral reefs, which sustain these fishing cooperatives’ livelihoods, but they also can’t do anything about it. They could hunt lionfish, but that takes time, and it means they’re not hunting other things. They’d be spending their precious time not on lobster, not on grouper—so it’s very unfortunate.” Looking ahead, Chavda plans to branch out by developing new fashion materials from other invasive species, curbing their spread by creating demand for them as a product. Fish sticks and cool wallets all around!

 
[Image description: A lionfish is pursued by a scuba diver underwater.] Credit & copyright: G1les, Pixabay