swimming
dr. dolittle | February 27, 2017 Image of a gilthead sea bream by Roberto Pillon - via Wikimedia Commons
Similar to humans, muscle growth in fish is increased with exercise. Unlike humans, however, teleost fish are able to continue growing in length as well as weight throughout their lives. This type of meat, I mean muscle, growth happens in two ways: 1) muscle cells get bigger and 2) new muscle cells form. Researchers at the University of Barcelona in Spain wanted to know what effect moderate sustained swimming would have on the muscles of young fingerling gilthead sea bream, a type of teleost fish (image above). Their…
oracknows | August 9, 2016As I mentioned yesterday, there are news events involving medicine (more specifically pseudoscience in medicine) that are so ubiquitous and irritating that they’re enough to bring me briefly out of my vacation to bang out a quick post. So it was when I wrote my post yesterday about Michael Phelps’ enthusiasm for cupping, a practice attributed to traditional Chinese medicine that is actually an ancient practice that seems to have been independently thought up in multiple cultures, such as the ancient Egyptians. Basically, cupping therapy is a near-universal practice dating back at least 3,500…
oracknows | August 8, 2016So, in case you hadn’t noticed, I was taking a brief vacation, a long weekend if you will. As a result, I hadn’t planned on posting new completely original material until Wednesday or Thursday. (Monday’s post, some of you noticed, was a modified crosspost from my not-so-super-secret other blog.)
Then something happened.
You know you’re a committed blogger when your vacation can be interrupted by an overpowering urge to write about something in the news. Longtime regular readers (or even not-so-longtime regular readers) can probably guess right away what I’m talking about. Of course, I gave it…
gregladen | August 4, 2016It is the time of year that we talk about drowning. I’m focusing here on the US, and for the most part, recreational drowning, as opposed to being drowned in a flood. Also, I'm using mainly information from Minnesota as an exemplar. It turns out that analyzing drowning data, and social behavior related to drowning, at the state level (as a proxy for the media market level) is important, because, I contend, the likelihood of a child drowning in a given media market is roughly inversly proportinate to the number of children who have drown or nearly drown in that same media market over the…
gregladen | January 6, 2013I just want to say that Huxley is pretty bad at swimming.
I quickly add, for a 3 year old human, he's pretty darn good at it. Amanda's family is very aquatic, as tends to happen when everyone spends several weeks per year (or longer) on the edge of a lake. They can all ski really well, they can all swim really well, etc. etc. So, very soon after Huxley was born, his grandfather started to bring him to age-appropriate swimming lessons. He is now 37 months old and has been to a swimming lesson almost every week. In addition to to that, Amanda brings him to the pool pretty close to once a…
rallain | March 22, 2010This is a topic that I am going to talk about in my physical science class. Might as well make a post about it, right?
Here is the deal. You are in a pool. You drop a quarter in the deep end and swim down to get it. I know the first thing you are going to ask: Why do I have a quarter in the pool? Does it matter. What matters is that your ears are killing you. Boy, that hurts. Why do your ears hurt and what can you do about it?
Pressure and depth
When you put a fluid in a gravitational field (like on Earth), the pressure in that fluid (or gas) increases as you go down. Why? There are…
bleimanb | October 2, 2007Big Major Cay, an island in the Exuma Chain of the Bahamas is home to some very determined pigs. There are various theories about the origins of these once domestic pigs, but whether abandoned there by a farmer or dumped overboard during a storm, there they remain, alone in piggy paradise.
The pigs claim to fame stems from their enthusiasm for handouts. While they prefer humans to disembark and feed them on the beach, the impatient pigs will trudge into the water and swim out to your vessel if you wait a few minutes.
They are a big hit with tourists and children. There are also rumors that…
zooillogix | March 21, 2007>We're going to need a bigger boat, Lion's Mane Jellyfish. cyanea capillata Photo Credit Paul Johnson
A swarm of large, stinging jellyfish attacked female swimmers in the World Swimming Championships off of St. Kilda Beach in Melbourne, Australia, Tuesday. Winds blew the jellies, most likely of the massive lion's mane variety, into the course area, where they tormented participants throughout the race. Most of the women emerged from the water covered in red rashes from head to toe. Said second-place finisher, Cassandra Patten, "It sounds weird, but it actually broke up the swimming a…