In what has to be one of the coolest stories I’ve come across in a while, a guy has decided that he wants to acquire a house, starting with a red paper clip and progressively trading it up for higher value items. He’s currently up to a year’s free rent at a place in Phoenix.

I’ve almost caught up with my responsbilities. In the meantime, I wanted to share something I came across in one of those moments I should have been working.

There’s an artist who uses Photoshop and Illustrator to create as realistic as possible scenes. Some of his earlier works, while very good, still barely look digitial. His latest work however blows me away. If you know anything about computers and Photoshop, you’ll find the following information on the piece impressive. Note in particular that he spent almost 2,000 hours creating the image.

• The image size is 40 inches by 120 inches.
• The flattened file weighs in at 1.7 Gigabytes.
• It took eleven months (close to 2,000 hours) to create.
• The painting is comprised of close to fifty individual Photoshop files.
• Taking a cumulative total of all the files, the overall image contains over 15,000 layers.
• Over 500 alpha channels were used for various effects.
• Over 250,000 paths make up the multitude of shapes throughout the scene.

How long will it be before pictures aren’t trustworthy? We’re already there in some regards but it’s only going to get easier as technology improves. It won’t surprise me when digital camera makers introduce “assurance” technology so that images off the camera can be verified as authentic.

I know I said I was taking a break, but being Good Friday and all, I thought I should share with you today how easter eggs are made.

Now, I debated putting this picture up. On the surface it seems a little immature. Fortunately I’m a biologist (in training at least). We discuss topics the general public might find immature or embarassing — namely sex — with mechanical callousness everyday. Therefore, in the interest of learning, and with no undertones of child like humor, I can offer you this picture.

Remember, this is simply a biological phenomenon. There’s absolutely nothing funny about it.

It’s crunch time. I’ll be busy the next few days finishing a paper on interspecific territoriality and convergent evolution. (No need to ask, I plan on posting about this interesting idea). So, I’ll be taking a little break from blogging.

In the meantime, the lastest edition of I and the Bird is up. (For those unaccustomed to blogging carnivals, follow the link for an explanation).

Yours truly is included for my post on mockingbirds trying to kill blind people.

Here are my favorites from the carnival, in case you don’t want to wade through them all.

Living the Scientific Life posts this article on the new species of parrot and mouse discovered from the Phillipines. The parrot is one sharp looking bird.

Bill Thompson posts about his first encounter with Pale-billed Woodpecker. What’s so cool about his post is that he actually took pictures of both Pale-billed and Lineated Woodpeckers. I left him a comment on identifying the two.

A lady out in Tucson put up pictures of a Curve-billed Thrasher building a nest. It’s all about the location.

And finally, if you think posts about backyard birding are boring, you should try reading backyard birding posts from other countries. They assuredly are not boring, unless of course you’re from that country.

I’ll reemerge from my hole in a few days.

Last week, Bill Nye (The Science Guy) gave a talk at McLennan Community College in Waco, TX. Everything went well at first, until…

The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.

A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.

“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.

What’s funny to me is that people would get angry at this, when there are two creation stories. Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 is the first, and a new story begins in Genesis 2:4. In the second story, man is made before anything else, including women. This is in total conflict with the creation order given in the first account, and seems rather in conflict with Genesis 1:27 which, with a close literal interpretation implies that men and women were created at the same time.

You know, when I’m reading literature and I see two different stories back to back, I usually recognize a literary style other than literal history. But it seems that some, like the attendees to Nye’s lectures, wear their sensitivies on their sleeve, looking for their opportunity to cause a scene. Man, it’s embarrassing.

Nye’s website (warning, it’s the most annoying website ever, turn off your speakers or puncture your eardrums) opens with a flash animation of the evolution of man. Perhaps those audience members who got angry should have googled him first. Then they could have gotten angry at home.

Every year Angelo State has an event called the Moon Lecture where they bring in a top rate scientist to speak on different issues. The night before the lectures, they have an informal BBQ where faculty and certain students can hear the life story of the speaker, meet them, and ask questions. Having just arrived at school, this was my first time to attend.

This year the speaker is Leroy Hood. (And see more on Wikipedia).

He’s a systems biologist who is credited with creating the DNA sequencer, amoung other things. All you lab rats out there who love looking at DNA sequences to study evolution have Dr. Hood to thank. He’s also been involved with the Human Genome Project, various immunology projects, and a host of other biotechnology projects.

He basically spoke of his childhood (grew up in Montana) and how his interest in science was nurtured by parents and childhood teachers. One of those high school teachers convinced him to attend Cal Tech, where he arrived in 1960. He said it was the biggest culture shock of his life. Upon arriving, his roommate asked him if he’d taken some course (cancer research? — I don’t remember). “Not only had I not taken the course, I’d never heard of it.” “You’re in big trouble then, you’re not going to make it,” his roommate responded. Dr. Hood said that his roommate had failed out the first semester from playing 20 hours of bridge a day. Though I’ve never played bridge, I get the idea that it would be an emmensely more enjoyable way to fail out of college than 20 hours of video games a day, as my peers do now.

He spoke of how accessible his professors at Cal Tech were. My jaw dropped when I heard some of his teachers his freshman year. Richard Feynman for physics, Linus Pauling for chemistry, and George Beadle for biology. He had the attention of every single person in the room.

Tomorrow he’ll be giving two lectures which I will attend. As I mentioned, his interest is systems biology. I think it’s essentially the question of how we manage the information we’re getting. When you think about the amount of information contained in the genome and the interactions going on in a biological system, we’ve gotten to the point where we need ways to condense that information and think about it conceptually. Dr. Hood mentioned that medical school was a big disappointment to him because of the rote memorization and the lack of conceptual interest. (Yeah, I personally call it the dark side of biology). I believe his talks will center upon the work being done in these areas.

I’ll take notes and present the highlights. I’m very much looking forward to it.

I heard the funniest birding story of my life this evening, especially if you can laugh at blind people getting put at risk of getting run over.

At my university, Angelo State, we have a cross walk that emits a loud shrill repetitive tone when it’s safe to walk across a busy street. The nose sounds very similar to a bird call, and in fact, my very week on campus, I was headed to class and stopped in my tracks when I heard it. You see, I thought it was a bird, and I didn’t know what it was. It’s very rare when I don’t recognize a bird by sound, and it either means it’s rare or that I get to learn something — either one is fun.

I never knew what that noise was for, until talking to a friend tonight. It allows blind students to know when it’s safe to cross the street, and there are probably around a dozen or so that make use of it.

What a great system, right? Well it was, until a Northern Mockingbird learned how to perfectly mimic the tone. Apparently, the bird did such a good job that people couldn’t tell the difference between the light and the bird.

Something had to be done. Some folks in the biology department used a net to catch the bird and relocate it. And fortunately (for mankind and the bird), it didn’t come back.

I’ve heard of mockingbirds mimicking an incredible range of noises. In fact, I just posted about their mimicry of prairie dogs this weekend. But I’ve never heard of a mockingbird that risked killing people.

I’m sure you saw this already, but if you didn’t, a Malaysian man is getting charged quite the amount for long distance on his late father’s telephone bill.

A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he received a U.S. $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.

Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father’s phone line in January after he died and settled the 84-ringgit (U.S. $23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01-ringgit (U.S. $218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

It reminds me of the ransom demand in Austin Powers. ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS! And everyone just laughs.

Is it even possible to talk that long in a lifetime? Does all of Malaysia even use $218 trillion of long distance in a year?

Well, it seems the kids are continuing their downward spiral into decadence. I previously blogged about the first time I noticed we were encouraging their behavior. Now my wife has brought home the second installment to their debauchery.

She told me that one little boy came up after class and told her that he liked her earrings.

Don’t trust him honey. He’s just trying to reach third base.

I went birding today at a local state park with my wife and ended up parked in the middle of a prairie dog colony. I was looking for Burrowing Owls, but ended up absorbing myself in the antics of these furry little Sciurids (squirrels).

Several of the little buggers approached the car. Hmmm. Somebody’s been feeding the wildlife.

The coolest thing by far though was a territorial behavior we witnessed between (presumably) two males. One prairie dog would approach the other, who would turn it’s tail, raised up in the air, towards it’s opponent. After a while, it would turn around, and it’s opponent would turn around too. In other words, someone was always looking at their opponent’s butt. They even made short sprints at each other.

We didn’t know at first whether they were going to mate or fight. Being the voyeurs that we are, we kept watching. We got our answer when suddenly two prairie dogs became one large blur as they rolled around violently on the ground. It was a heck of a fight and pure fun to witness.

As we kept birding, we noticed that the mockingbirds in the area would intersperse their song with perfect mimicry of prairie dog scolding and alarm calls.

The birding was good, but the highlight this morning was watching mammals.