THINKtober 2019
Inspired by Inktober, this month we will be sharing science in the form of doodles, videos, articles, and fun facts!
Last Updated on October 31, 2019
Painting: The Impending Storm (2004) by Cree artist Kent Monkman
Image Description: A rich, green forest, river, and grassland fill the painting; dark blue, ominous clouds cast shadows on the landscape. A canoe filled with supplies is parked on the riverbank while two figures leap away from the roiling storm. The Indigenous headdress worn by one figure flutters in the wind. Their embrace references The Storm (1880) by Pierre Auguste Cot. White text superimposed on the painting reads “Thinktober: SciComm Collective.”
Inktober 2019 Prompts
Image Description: Inktober 2019 prompts list, courtesy of Jake Parker @Inktober. 1 Ring • 2 Mindless • 3 Bait • 4 Freeze • 5 Build • 6 Husky • 7 Enchanted • 8 Frail • 9 Swing • 10 Pattern • 11 Snow • 12 Dragon • 13 Ash • 14 Overgrown • 15 Legend • 16 Wild • 17 Ornament • 18 Misfit • 19 Sling • 20 Tread • 21 Treasure • 22 Ghost • 23 Ancient • 24 Dizzy • 25 Tasty • 26 Dark • 27 Coat • 28 Ride • 29 Injured • 30 Catch • 31 Ripe.
OCT 1 • Ring
Ever wonder how rings of air/smoke are made? Check out this video to learn the physics behind ring formation and how to make your own smoke cannons!
by Eve / image courtesy of The Royal Institution video
Image Description: A white puff of smoke against a black background.
OCT 2 • Mindless
It's so easy to get absorbed in our phones while walking down the street these days, tuning out the hubbub around us. Harvard psychology professor Dr. Ellen Langer says "The consequences of being mindless are enormous... When you’re mindless, you’re not able to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves, you’re not able to avert danger not yet arisen, you’re not there and you’re oblivious to not being there." Read the full interview on mindfulness with her here.
by Lingx / drawing courtesy of Lingx
Image Description: Ink drawing shows seven figures out on the street, each occupied with their own activities (such as listening to music).
OCT 3 • Bait
Carnivorous plants have evolved to survive in nutrient-poor environments by supplementing their diet with insects and single-celled organisms. The pitcher plant, which grows in Canada, lures prey with sweet nectar; once on the rim of the pitcher, insects fall inside the inescapably smooth trap and into the plant’s digestive juices. Not gruesome enough for you? N. attenboroughii - native to the Philippines and named after David Attenborough, the famous broadcaster and naturalist - can digest an entire mouse! Its pitcher holds up to 1.5 litres of fluid and it can grow to half a meter tall. Want something more wholesome? N. hemsleyana, found in Borneo, lets bats sleep in the safety of its pitcher…in exchange for their poop, which the plant devours for nutrients.
by Danielle / drawing courtesy of Danielle
Image Description: Drawing of green pitcher plants with red spots.
OCT 4 • Freeze
Scientists use cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to visualize biological molecules at high resolutions (really zoomed in!) By plunging biological samples in cold liquid ethane, we can preserve proteins in their natural shapes. Then, by shooting them with high-speed electrons, we can detect the electron scatter with microscopes, and use this information to perform 3D reconstruction. Cryo-EM can be used to determine protein structures at resolutions up to a few tenths of a nanometre, such as this model of human hemoglobin, the molecule responsible for carrying oxygen in our blood.
by Cynthia / figure courtesy of Khoshouei et al., Nature 2017
Image Description: Electron map and structure of hemoglobin determined by cryoEM.
OCT 5 • Build
Find out about how different animals are built — from whale fins having the same bone structure as human hands, to how flight has evolved independently in at least three different ways.
by Eve / figure courtesy of Julio Lacerda
Image Description: Armoured yellow, yellow-red, and yellow-green dinosaurs.
OCT 6 • Husky
Ever wondered about those striking blue eyes? Read about how a community science project analyzing doggo DNA helped scientists identify a genetic mutation in Siberian Huskies strongly linked to that brilliant blue eye colour here!
by Cynthia / drawing courtesy of Cynthia
Image Description: Ink drawing of husky with blue eyes.
OCT 7 • Enchanted
Have you ever found yourself enchanted by a beautiful person? Learn the science behind how beauty is perceived by our brains in this TED talk.
by Eve / photo courtesy of Folasade Adeoso et al.
Image Description: Portrait of woman of colour wearing decoration.
OCT 8 • Frail
Though spider webs seem rather flimsy and frail, ounce for ounce they are actually about 3-5 times stronger than steel! Learn about the structure of spider webs with this video from Science Magazine and see its strength tested to the limit with Mythbusters Jr.
by Eve / photo courtesy of Benjamin Balazs via Pixabay
Image Description: Dew on a spider web against a green background.
OCT 9 • Swing
Think about your experience of the past few summers and winters: have they been unpredictably hotter or colder? Longer or shorter? Climate change has an undeniable impact on animal and plant life. Fluctuating temperatures change the growing seasons of food sources, favouring the growth of certain plants and increasing animal populations that feed on those plants. Ultimately, abnormal shifts in seasons disrupt organisms and habitats around the world.
The screengrab maps predictions of changes in seasons. Because of climate change, the first fall frost day for Montreal is expected to shift up to 12 days back!
Look at the seasonal changes for your hometown using the Climate Atlas of Canada, a climate prediction model built by the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium.
by Alex / screenshot courtesy of Climate Atlas of Canada
Image Description: Map of Eastern Canada with temperature change predictions for the next 30 years.
OCT 10 • Pattern
You might have heard about the Fibonacci sequence in math class. You have one (1) pair of rabbits, a male and a female. You wait a month, they’re still there (1), but now they’re old enough to reproduce, and you get two (2) pairs of rabbits. A month later, you get another pair (3), and a month after that, both the original pair and their babies produce a new pair of rabbits (5).... This sequence of numbers (1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21...) is called the Fibonacci sequence, and beyond its mathematical significance (each number in the sequence is equal to the sum of the last two elements), it is widespread in nature. Pinecones, leaves, flowers, artichokes… if you count the spirals on any of these, you’ll find they’re almost always Fibonacci numbers. Why’s that? It has to do with Phi, the Golden Ratio, which turns out to be an efficient way for plants to organize their leaves and petals. Find out what that means by watching Vihart’s series on Fibonacci numbers in nature!
“This is why science and mathematics are so much fun. You discover things that seem impossible to be true, and then get to figure out why it’s impossible for them not to be.” — Vihart
by Danielle / drawing courtesy of Danielle
Image Description: A drawing of a green-yellow succulent plant with the above quote.
OCT 11 • Snow
Watch this video to learn about one of the first epidemiologists, John Snow, and how he identified the source of the 1854 cholera outbreak in London, England.
by Eve / etching by William Heath, courtesy of the Wellcome Collection
Image Description: A woman dropping her porcelain tea-cup in horror upon discovering the monstrous contents of a magnified drop of Thames water; revealing the impurity of London drinking water.
OCT 12 • Dragon
Despite geographic and temporal separation, many cultures have told tales of dragons. Ever wonder what inspired these legends? Read more about dragon myths around the world here.
History not your thing? Check out this aeronautical engineer's analysis of Game of Thrones dragons' ability to fly and breathe fire.
by Danielle / woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi via WikiArt
Image Description: Dragon with spiked wings swoops down toward the ocean.
OCT 13 • Ash
Unfortunately the shiny, metallic critter pictured is the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect causing significant destruction to ash trees mainly in Ontario and around the Great Lakes. This pest is native to Asia and thought to have been brought to North America through shipping of untreated packaging materials. Infected ash trees have near 100% mortality, resulting in loss of habitat and food for other species, timber for product manufacturing and urban or rural biodiversity. Learn more about this little bug and the work being done at Natural Resources Canada here.
by Cynthia / photo courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
Image Description: Shiny green insect perched upon a tree.
OCT 14 • Overgrown
It’s hard to say whether giants as we know them in fairytale stories ever roamed the land. The tallest human we have a record of, Robert Wadlow, stood at 2.72m tall—about the closest we’ll ever get. But what makes people like him so much taller than the average tall person? The human growth hormone (hGH; also called somatotropin) is responsible for stimulating growth, cell reproduction and cell regeneration. When it becomes hypersecreted, as was the case for Wadlow, it causes disorders such as acromegaly or gigantism, producing excessive height, or large limbs and facial features.
by Vi-An / drawing courtesy of Louis Huard from The Heroes of Asgard
Image Description: Drawing of Thor encountering a giant five times his height in a wooded area.
OCT 15 • Legend
It’s Nobel Prize season: when great science and great scientists get recognized. This year, we celebrate scientific discovery from the microscopic level (sensing of oxygen by cells in our body), to the societal level (development of lithium ion batteries), to the very macroscopic level (renewed understanding of the cosmos). While an exciting time, Nobel Prizes have long since distorted the most fundamental truth about science: that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Prizes are unfortunately only granted to individuals and not groups, for example, perpetuating the idea of the “lone male genius” as the sole contributor to the development of science. What’s more, non-male and non-white researchers rarely get recognized (despite the academy’s belief that “there is a positive trend, with more women being nominated”). Read more on the Absurdity of the Nobel Prizes here.
by Elena / drawing courtesy of Elena
Image Description: A Nobel Prize medallion showing the side profile of Alfred Nobel, with the expression "EUREKA!" at the top and "lone male genius" on the right.
OCT 16 • Wild
While the ocean covers approximately 70% of our planet, supporting life through the regulation of temperature and weather, over 80% of it remains unexplored! Check out this video to uncover some secrets our oceans might hide.
by Danielle / photo courtesy of Hoodh Ahmed via Unsplash
Image Description: Birdseye view of shoreline with the ocean on one side and a forest on the other.
OCT 17 • Ornament
Bumblebees and wasp species are easy to tell apart from other insects. If you’ve ever been visited by one it’s likely your initial reaction was fear of getting stung — because you recognize the characteristic yellow and black rings on their abdomen and thorax. If a hoverfly visited you, you may have the same reaction and not even realize it’s a species that poses no threat. The hoverfly has evolved Batesian mimicry and taken on the colouration of a harmful species to appear more dangerous. On the other hand, bee and wasp species have evolved Müllerian mimicry. In the same way that someone might change their style to belong to a specific group of people and share in the benefits that group receives, these species all look scary together so nobody messes with them.
by Alex / image adapted from Ian Alexander
Image Description: Photographs comparing hoverfly (Batesian mimic with parasitic benefit) vs wasp and bee (Müllerian mimic with mutual benefit).
OCT 18 • Misfit
The animal world contains many species we consider as misfits - that is, animals that don’t fit well into any classification, so they have been given their own special place in the taxonomy of life. A very common example of a misfit is the marsupial: rather than giving birth to developed young as other placental mammals do, marsupials give birth to very underdeveloped young (joeys) that complete their development in the specialized pouch of their mothers.
But mammals in the group called monotremes are the real misfits. As opposed to the other two major classifications of mammals (placentals and marsupials) that give birth to live young, they lay eggs. This group only has five living species in the world: the platypus and four types of echidna, which are all found in Australia and Papua New Guinea. This animal group gets stranger. Like other mammals, monotremes produce milk. However, instead of delivering milk through nipples, they secrete milk from glands under their skin — essentially sweating out milk for their young to lap up off of! The strangeness doesn’t even end there. Monotremes also possess the ability to produce venom. The platypus, for example, delivers venom through spurs in their hind limbs. Finally, unlike any other mammal species, monotremes have the ability of electroreception, which allows them to detect electric signals in water and the ground. Echidnas use this ability to find tasty worms in the dirt without having to dig for them!
by Alex / drawing by John Gould
Image Description: A drawing of a pair of short-beaked echidnas on the ground hunting for food. One has a long tongue extended touching the dirt beneath it.
OCT 19 • Sling
When talking about outer space, a gravitational slingshot or gravitational assist is the use of a planet or astronomical body (such as the Moon) to change the path and speed of an aircraft. The assist comes from the gravity of the planet or body, which can save fuel and reduce expenses. Famously, when one of the oxygen tanks of the Apollo 13 exploded, a slingshot technique around the Moon was used to safely return the craft and crew home. In the image here, the Voyager 1 probe is shown using a different gravitational slingshot technique around Jupiter in order to gain dramatic speed and escape our solar system, to travel farther than any other object humans have sent into space.
by Cynthia / diagram courtesy of Science ABC
Image Description: Graphic of a probe trajectory away from Earth and looping around Jupiter to travel in another direction.
OCT 20 • Tread
Did you know there’s such a thing as a zombie fungus? Short of being science fiction, the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a fungus that infects ants and hijacks their bodies. Fungi deprive ants of nutrients and make them climb to high places in the forest. Scientists think this is a way for the fungus to spread spores to more ants down below. Intrigued? Read more here!
by Elena / photo courtesy of David P. Hughes
Image Description: Black ant on a leaf covered in orange fuss, with fungal growth protruding from its head.
OCT 21 • Treasure
Academia is a long arduous path, where it is easy to lose focus on what is important. Illustrated is a new doctor, hiding behind a treasure chest of accomplishments that is shown to everyone, in an attempt to mask the insecurity and constant reminder of how much one does not know. But what is in the chest is not the real reason why we do research. The real treasure is not a list of publications, the amount of money received, nor the fancy resources used, but the advancement of knowledge, whether in medicine or in technology. Keep only the most important point in focus, as there are many paths that converge to it!
by Lingx / drawing courtesy of Lingx
OCT 22 • Ghost
Nature’s ghost particles: that’s what some scientists colloquially call neutrinos. Despite being the most abundant subatomic particle in the universe, many of its properties (including its specific mass) remain elusive, because they are so hard to measure; neutrinos can travel through light-years worth of matter without interacting. They were only detected for the first time in 1955, despite being predicted by physicists since the 1930s. Here’s what we definitely know about them: they’re one of the fundamental particles of the universe, meaning that they aren’t made of smaller parts, they have a very small mass, no electrical charge, and come in three flavours (electron, muon, and tau). Understanding neutrinos can help us understand how matter is made up in the universe. And that is no small matter. Read more about all things neutrino here.
by Vi-An / graphic courtesy of All Things Neutrino
Image Description: Schematic representations of neutrinos.
OCT 23 • Ancient
How old does something need to be to qualify as ancient? Cyanobacteria, a phylum of aquatic bacteria, is considered the oldest still-existing species on the planet. The oldest undisputed fossils of cyanobacteria are about 2.1 billion years old, but some evidence points to their existence as far back as 2.7 billion years. Being exceptionally ancient isn’t their only claim to fame either. These unicellular organisms are also responsible for being the first organisms to evolve oxygenic photosynthesis—the kind of photosynthesis that produces oxygen and is prevalent in plants. In fact, the chloroplast in plants is actually a cyanobacteria that was likely absorbed by plant cells several evolutionary years ago. Next time you marvel at the lush green leaves of a plant, you can thank these small, green, ancient bacteria.
by Vi-An / photo courtesy of UC San Diego, Biological Sciences
Image Description: Round green cells (cyanobacteria) in a chain, shown against a blue background.
OCT 24 • Dizzy
The movement of fluids is one of the first things that we learn in science. Why? Because it's something that we can see. If we drop a rock in a glass of water, the water level will rise. Even before we realize that, we learn how to drink by ourselves. If you want to drink, you tilt a glass towards your mouth. It's a simple motion that even toddlers understand. They understand that titling the object tilts the liquid that it contains. This logic is used in reverse by our inner ear to understand the movement of our bodies.
The inner ear (also called labyrinth) is composed of three semi-circular canals that contain a fluid called endolymph. The movement of the fluid within the canals is then coded into neural signals that represent motion. Each of the canal is responsible for a specific movement of the head. The movements are side-to-side, up-and-down and titled towards the shoulders. A defectiveness of the inner ear can cause a feeling a dizziness. Essentially, your body is reacting as if you were on a roller coaster when you actually are just looking left and right to cross the street. This can be due to many different conditions including infections and congenital defects. It is recommended to visit a healthcare professional if you experience recurrent dizzy spells.
by Sabrina / graphic courtesy of Viet Tran
Image Description: Schematic representation of the inner ear.
OCT 25 • Tasty
What happens when you get a paper cut? An infection? A... tattoo? Immune cells called “macrophages” act as the first line of defence against pathogens and foreign material that enter your body. These little cells move fast to gobble up the potentially harmful substances before they have a chance to wreak havoc. Macrophages are also indispensable to wound healing processes. Interestingly, these immune cells are what makes tattoos permanent — and they do so by slurping up the tattoo pigment when it enters the skin! Next time you accidentally injure yourself or successfully fend off an oncoming cold, you have these little guys to thank! More on the immune system here; More on macrophages and tattoos here.
by Elena / drawing courtesy of Elena
Image Description: Macrophage eating foreign molecules.
OCT 26 • Dark
What is the world’s darkest shade? Turns out, not our sarcasm. Recently, Dr. Brian Wardle’s aeronautics and astronautics group at MIT serendipitously developed the blackest black while experimenting with carbon nanotubes. With input from MIT’s artist-in-residence Diemut Strebe, Wardle’s group decided to measure the material’s optical properties. They found the material absorbed at least 99.995% of incoming light, more than the previous record of 99.96% for Vantablack!
Strebe’s artwork entitled “The Redemption of Vanity” featured the material on a gleaming yellow diamond worth $2 million. Shrouding of the diamond’s sparkle with the blackest black is meant to challenge our perceptions of value and aesthetics. The material also has potential applications in science, such as in telescopes where the black can be used to reduce glare. Wardle noted that “the art really pushed the science in a different direction, which…is an interesting and unexpected result.” View the artwork here; more about the science here; more on Strebe’s art here; additional reference here.
by Elena
Image Description: Black (though not the darkest).
OCT 27 • Coat
Did you know there’s lots of science taking place behind the scenes at fine arts museums? Scientific research at art institutes often concern the material aspects of paintings, sculptures, and textiles. Using spectrometry and spectroscopy techniques, scientists can determine the material composition of art pieces and image details not visible to our naked eye. The research conducted is crucial for examining potential origins of art, the best way to conserve the material, or even underdrawings long covered up by the artist.
Take this painting of “Susanna and the Elders” by Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi for example. On the left, we see the finished version of the painting, depicting the biblical story of Susanna typically seen of paintings from the period. Underneath, however, art-restorer Kathleen Gilje found a different image with x-ray: a woman in writhing agony holding a knife-like object. The underdrawing revealed Gentileschi’s psyche toward the subject of unwanted attention from men, her sympathy for survivors of sexual harassment, and her political stance as a feminist painter.
Intrigued? Take a look at this list of scientific equipment at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and its uses in a museum context!
by Elena / painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, x-ray research courtesy of Kathleen Gilje
OCT 28 • Ride
Potential Energy. Kinetic Energy. Gravity. Acceleration. Pressure and Gases. Magnetic Fields. Hydraulics. The early exploration of these physics topics isn't easy to forget. Maybe it helped you discover a passion. Maybe it's the very first time that you had problems with numbers after years of getting high grades in math. Maybe you're still trying to figure out how to use the right-hand rule. Maybe we'll end up in a support group about it all together.
These concepts also congregate in a more pleasurable setting. All of the aforementioned aspects of physics need to be taken into consideration in order to build a rollercoaster. The launch of a rollercoaster, for example, either occurs with the use of hydraulics or by increasing potential energy. We are kept in our seats thanks to acceleration and gravity, with a little help from security belts. Roller coasters create their own gravity-like forces. That is why their acceleration is measured in g-forces (1G= 9.8m/s^2. For comparison, a spaceship reaches an acceleration of 3G. The Tower of Terror is a roller coaster in South Africa that reaches 6.3gs!) I don't know about you, but spaceships have no breaks - I wouldn't trust a roller coaster that has an acceleration greater than a spaceship during launch... However, the use of magnetic fields that successfully stop the carts seem to be trustworthy. If you'd like to know more about the physics behind roller coasters, start your dive here!
by Sabrina / photo via iStock
Image Description: Rollercoaster tracks.
OCT 29 • Injured
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a form of brain damage caused by an external force such as a direct impact, a sudden jolt, penetration of the skull by a foreign object, or an explosion, resulting in tearing, bruising or bleeding in the brain — ultimately leading to the death of brain cells. Concussions, for example, are a form of mild TBI which you may be familiar with. Many mild TBIs unfortunately go undiagnosed; while a severe injury can result in loss-of-consciousness or even death, mild cases present with a variety of more subtle symptoms such as headache, dizziness, blurred vision, mood changes, and fatigue. Although TBI is one of the most prevalent neurological conditions, accounting for approximately 2.8 million emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and deaths in the United States each year, its impact on survivors is not as prevalently researched and discussed. TBI is thus often deemed an “invisible” disability, which not only goes undiagnosed, but can have detrimental impacts that are behavioral, emotional, cognitive, financial, and/or physical. Check out this article for tips on how you can be an ally to people with disabilities, whether visible or not.
by Danielle / image courtesy of VSRao via Pixabay
Image Description: Graphic schema of a transparent person leaning on a surface; the skeleton and brain are visible.
OCT 30 • Catch
It’s flu season, which means germs and infectious agents abound. The best way to protect yourself and others around you? Vaccination! Vaccines work by introducing your immune system to viruses (such as influenza [the flu], measles, whooping cough) or viral components that have been attenuated or inactivated — that is, they won’t cause your body any harm. Having knowledge of this exposure, immune cells called T cells and B cells develop “memory.” “Memory” allows these immune cells to recognize viruses faster the second time around. So when viruses try to make you sick, your immune system is poised to take on the assaults, and, most of the time, you end up not catching the bug or you end up with only a mild infection. Think of your immune system as soldiers trained by vaccines to defend against unwanted invaders! More on vaccines here.
Remember to get vaccinated so you don’t catch deadly infections! This also keep individuals who cannot get vaccinated (e.g., newborns, the immunocompromised) safe. Vaccines that are accessible have all been through rigorous rounds of safety testing. Have a chat with your physician if you are still unsure about how they work.
by Elena / graphic courtesy of Nicholas Beales via Behance
Image Description: Concept art of B cells, the type of immune cells that produce antibodies against foreign invaders.
OCT 31 • Ripe
Ethylene (or ethene) is one of the main plant hormones, and is primarily responsible for the ripening of fruit, the opening of flowers and the shedding of leaves (how seasonally fitting!) Ethylene is also the world’s most widely produced organic compound! In addition to being used for agricultural purposes like fruit ripening, commercially produced ethylene is polymerized into long chains to make polyethylene, the most common type of plastic.
Thanks for following along with our thoughts and tidbits of science throughout this month! We hope you found something interesting and learned something new!
👻🎃Happy Halloween 🎃👻
by Cynthia / drawing courtesy of Cynthia
Image Description: Coloured drawing of an apple, orange and banana, with structural formula of ethylene drawn around and on the image.
