Montauk Monster

Ginny finally emailed me and shamed me into researching the famous "Montauk Monster"


Looks pretty darn weird to me. Before I go into what it might be, look at the following picture, and try to guess what it is:


It's a newer photo of the same creature. See the ears, the fur, and the bones of the snout? This thing has been in the water, and things in the water tend to lose their fur. When the flesh starts to go, the flesh on the bony snout is often first. What you're seeing in the photos is most likely not a 'beak', but the bones of its snout.

I have shamelessly copied my information and pictures from the blog Tetrapod Zoology, by Darren Naish.

What does he think it is? He thinks it's a raccoon.

To my ignorant eye (I'm not a zoologist after all), this looks like a pretty good explanation. Another reason why the explanation is good: he doesn't have an ignorant eye, and he is a zoologist after all.

Are there other explanations? Sure. Check out www.snopes.com (a great place to see if someone is pulling your leg), and they report that William Wise, director of Stony Brook University's Living Marine Resources Institute, consulted with some other zoologists and decided it's just made up with latex.

Darren Naish disagrees, and has politely pointed out that they apparently don't know anything about raccoons.

So what is it? I don't know. It could be latex, it could be a raccoon, it could be something else, but here's what we do know. It's not a mysterious sea creature. There are too many good plausible explanations (see Occam's razor) that don't require inventing new creatures to explain it. And the circumstances are suspicious. The body was unavailable for examination, and even the skeleton has conveniently disappeared.

That's science. Science deals with truth, and real truth (not the pretend stuff commercials try to sell you) has error. The error means that you can never know with certainty. The more error, the more uncertainty. The most difficult thing about science is that sometimes it just stops, and says "without more information, we just don't know". Humans like to know, which is why they invent mysterious sea creatures, astrology, and Cold FX to fill the gaps. Scientists like to know too, but badly enough that they care whether or not the explanation is true.

With no body, and only a couple of pictures, I'm going with the people that have spent years studying animals: it's a raccoon or clever latex.

Either way, it's still very cool. I had no idea the ocean could do that to animals, and latex is awesome stuff! I'd link to a latex special effects shop, but much of it is NSFS (not safe for school). Apparently it's 'too cool'.

Cheers,

Ron Neufeld
Canada's Best Boarding School

Be Doubtful

I've lost track of the number of students that have asked me about the LHC, or expressed a slight worry that the world was going to end yesterday.

Obviously the world did not end, but for those that want a very quick overview go to youtube here:



The ATLAS experiment is also on youtube. Check them both out.

I'm sorry it's in rap. But it's actually not that bad.

But that's not what triggered this post. Apparently an uncritical media and a culture of credulity over LHC fears has resulted in a suicide in India. This is why critical thinking is important. Our media reports what people are saying, but sadly is often more concerned with being 'fair' to both sides than giving a clear indication where the evidence lies.

The Bad Astronomer said it far more eloquently than I ever could.

Back to studying.

Cheers,

Ron Neufeld
Canada's Best Boarding School

When I say Bleed, You say Blue

There are sporting events in which multitudes cheer their favourites, shaking the very foundations of the stadium with their cries. There are teams whose fans are fiercely loyal, supporting their team in every possible way. There are events in which the entire world gathers to determine who is the best of the best. Mighty though they are, these are but pale shadows to “Orientation Fun & Games Night”, where the fan and the competitor are but one and the same. Thrown from the four corners of the earth, we had competitors from nearly every continent. In the end the blue Privett Ram knocked out the orange pirates, red bulls, and green unicorns. There’s a reason our house is the colour of first placed.

Bleed – Blue!

Number one! Tonight was an amazing night, the teamwork and the co-operation was extraordinary! The future of Privett house is looking very bright. - Fraser

The competition was fierce but the boys and girls of Privett prevailed. The amazing teamwork and cooperation by “The Team in Blue” was a clear advantage over the other houses. Brentwood’s future is a blue dawn. - Taylor

Privett and all of its men and women were very impressive. The combination of competitiveness and house spirit exhibited by the new students was extraordinary. This excellent combo propelled Privett to its first (but of course not its last) Interhouse win this year. – Myles

House spirit and competitive drive was strong, and propelled us to a fun night of winning. Despite biased judges and cheating opponents, we pulled out an easy win against the pitiful Whittall, Ellis, and Rogers. – Mike

Fun and games marked the first of many victorious days for Privett this year on our quest towards the glorified Interhouse Trophy. Privett proved to be a tough competitor on the day and finished strongly to crush the opponents. Well Done Boys! – Dillon

This year’s annual fun and games extravaganza marked yet another win for Privett house, a feat that was both triumphant and inevitable. Never again will the inferior houses underestimate the cataclysmic power of the ram. Go Privett!! - Kyle

Bleed – Blue!

Canada's Best Boarding School

(Once I get some pictures I'll edit them in.)

Elemental YouTube

Bored during prep? Nothing left to do?

Go to YouTube. There is an excellent channel titled The Periodic Table of Videos. Each element on the periodic table has its own video.

While we may throw some lithium, sodium and even potassium around in class (safely of course), there is no chance you'll ever see some pure metallic Cesium. (I tried. Nobody will sell it to a high school that I found, assuming I could get the science department to pay for it and safely contain it.) But you can see it here:



If you're caught watching by the dutymaster, tell'em I assigned it as homework. I'll back you up. My favourites so far: Sodium (decent explosions), Xenon (because of the Canadian connection), and Uranium. They'll be updating the Cesium one soon ... I really hope they throw some in water!

Cheers,

Ron Neufeld
Canada's Best Boarding School

NASA for everyone

NASA has an image site with some spectacular pictures. I just found out about it.

Check out an aurora from the shuttle POV:



Cheers,

Ron Neufeld
Canada's Best Boarding School

Chemical Free, Veggies

I have been asked to leave one store in my life, and that was a Victoria market that bore a sign titled "Organic Salt". My rather loud protestations inquiring how what is essentially a rock be considered "organic" by any stretch of the imagination, or whether the term was an oxymoron (emphasis on moron), resulted in my being asked to leave. By my wife. Before I embarrassed her any further.

There's a lot of woo involved in the marketing term 'organic', but it does seem to come from a fear of chemicals in general.

The antivaxxers use scaremongering tactics that work through people's fear of mercury. Even more recently, our own government fell for a chemical scare with BPA by banning baby bottles containing it, although their own report suggests that there is little risk. Further assessment found baby bottles with PBA to be perfectly safe, but I doubt it will make much difference. The urban legend has started and, like aspartame, I expect people to be confused about it for some time to come. (If you follow that last link the webmaster equates Adolf Hitler with NutraSweet. Enough said.)

At the local country fair my fair wife once again sought some fresh produce. Above the squash and beans there was a sign proclaiming "Chemical Free, Veggies". Not just "pesticide free", or "grown without fertilizer", but free of all chemicals (one assumes) at all. No dihydrogen monoxide, no nucleotides (in deoxyribonucleic acid), polysaccharides (such as cellulose or starch), and no vitamins or minerals.

Now I don't blame the author of this sign, but it annoyed me nonetheless as another indicator of how poorly people understand chemistry. Listeria bacteria are entirely natural, but we would rather it wasn't in our food (leaving aside for a moment the woo involved in defining 'natural').

So a reminder, to all my students, of what contains chemicals. If you can shove something, and it shoves back, it's matter. And all matter is made of chemicals. And all chemicals are made of elements. And chemicals are either dangerous or safe based on their dose and their properties, not simply because they are chemicals.



But do be careful about dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO), an extremely dangerous chemical that some of our Olympic athletes have been caught using. Using complicated analytical methods I detected the presence of DHMO in the vegetables, and have decided that eating veggies is obviously too dangerous.

Cheers,

Ron Neufeld
Canada's Best Boarding School