The Loh Down on Science

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I catch these just before I get to work, sometimes they are very interesting...sometimes just funny:

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Today's offering is:

Musical Temple

There's more than one way to make "rock" music!This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.

South India's six hundred-year-old Vitthala Temple is held up with solid granite pillars. They're not just for support--they're MUSICAL.

The pillars are decorated with skinny columns that emit tones when tapped, with different columns producing sounds mimicking different Indian instruments--bells, percussion, and strings.

What makes these rocks sing? To find out, Anish Kumar of the Indira Ghandi Center for Atomic Research examined the mineral structure in the columns. He also analyzed recordings of the music from the columns.

He found that the pillars are arranged like the bars of a xylophone, with the sounds rising in pitch when they're struck in sequence.

Each column is around 3 feet high and 4 inches wide. But TINY variations in their height and width--just a few millimeters--change the speed at which sound travels through them, producing different tones.

Hey, these rocks sure know how to ROCK. And, presumably, to roll, not that we'd officially advocate knocking over a six hundred year old temple! Please.

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That's pretty cool.

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Fleeing Critters

Maple syrup, stronger beer-- What's not to like aboot our Canadian neighbors, eh?

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science

Saying the Great White North indeed looks tempting-- For Michigan's smaller mammals. So say researchers at the University of Michigan.

What's has the critters Quebec-bound? Global warming.

Michigan's regional temperatures have increased significantly over the past thirty-eight years. Average daily lows in the Upper Peninsula have risen almost four degrees Fahrenheit.

So small mammals like mice, chipmunks, and voles, are hittin' the road, headed north -- where they're breeding like--well--rodents, and replacing their northern counterparts.

To chart the mammals' changing ranges over time, scientists analyzed a hundred years of trapping records, museum specimen collections-- even road-kill reports.

This revealed the changing distribution and abundance of fifty-thousand critters, representing nine small-mammal species.

All are ecologically important: They disperse seeds, eat pesky insects, get eaten themselves by large predators. So their loss from southern areas? Not good.

Their impact on NORTHERN species?

Researchers don't know yet but our guess is weakened Canadian hockey Little Leagues. Chipmunk leagues, you know!

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I hear that some of the Meso-American temples in Mexico have a similar thing - where sound is funneled at the bottom in such a way as to create bird or snake sounds at the top.