Tag: gun

Posted in Science & Nature

Badass Weapons Of Nature: Mantis Shrimp

Posted on by Jinavie

In April 1998, a shrimp by the name of Tyson punched through the quarter-inch-thick glass of his cell and attempted an escape. He was promptly caught and had to be sent to a more secure facility. Unlike his boxing counterpart, Tyson was merely 10 centimetres in length.
Mantis shrimp are well-known for their “fists of fury” – officially the fastest punch in the natural world.

Their weapons of choice are their clubs that can be retracted and folded under their head. Using a remarkable energy-storage system – much like the cocking mechanism of a gun combined with a spring – the mantis shrimp can unleash its rounded, stubby claws at a speed of 80km/h to hit its target in 0.003 seconds. This is an amazing feat given that it happens underwater, where the water puts up a significantly higher resistance compared to air. The acceleration needed to produce this awesome punch is 10,000 times the force of gravity (similar to a bullet). In simpler words, researchers could not film using high-speed cameras and needed to borrow a super high-speed camera just to see the punch happen. 

However, the surprises do not end here. Researchers soon found that each strike by the mantis shrimp not only inflicted heavy physical damage, but the sheer speed of the punch created cavitation (implosion of bubbles). Much like the pistol shrimp, this cavitation releases massive amounts of light and heat energy. This shockwave happens immediately after the punch, essentially resulting in the target receiving a deadly one-two hit combo which instantly knocks it out (or disintegrated). 

The force of the mantis shrimp’s punch can easily penetrate the hard shell of most crustaceans in the ocean, meaning no creature is safe. Mantis shrimps have also been observed beating up fish and octopi – and succeeding.

Not only does the mantis shrimp have the most powerful strike, it also has one of the most sophisticated eyes in nature and is extremely agile. This, combined with the shrimp’s cunning nature makes it the perfect hunter. It tends to ambush prey and swiftly knocks it out before it knows what hit it. If the one-hit KO fails, the mantis shrimp uses its agility to hit the foe and quickly swim away, then hit again from the other side until the foe is crushed.

Lastly, the shrimp described above is actually one type of mantis shrimp called a smasher. There is another subtype called spearer with claws modified into sharp spears that can be thrusted with the same force as the smasher’s clubs.

The only adequate metaphor to describe this awesome creature would be a Mike Tyson punching as hard as he can, in his prime, while his fist is attached to a meteor entering the atmosphere.

(Image source: Cracked.com)

Posted in Science & Nature

Badass Weapons Of Nature: Bombardier Beetle

Posted on by Jinavie

The bombardier beetle, or Brachymus creptians, has a “machine gun”. When attacked, it makes an explosive sound and spouts smoke.
This beetle combines chemicals from two separate glands to make the smoke. 
The first gland produces a solution of 25% hydrogen peroxide and 10% hydroquinone, while the second gland produces peroxidase, an enzyme that catalyses the reaction. When these solutions are combined and heated to 100°C, smoke and nitric acid vapour is produced and explosively released.

If you put your hand close to a bombardier beetle, it will rapidly release a scalding, noxious, red vapour. This nitric acid will cause blisters on afflicted skin.
Bombardier beetles also know how to aim the tip of its abdomen to target an enemy. Via this method, it can hit a target a few centimetres away. Even if it misses, the explosive sound will scare away any predator. 
Normally, bombardier beetles store enough chemicals for three or four shots. However, some entomologists have found that some species can fire up to 24 times in rapid succession if provoked.

As these beetles are a bright orange and silver-blue colour, they are very noticeable. They act as if they do not care if they are seen, as they are equipped with an effective cannon. Generally, beetles with a colourful coat have a unique, ingenious defensive mechanism to ward off curious animals and insects.
Despite this, rats that know that the beetle loves to use this “ingenious defensive mechanism” quickly grab the beetle and plant its abdomen in the ground. After attacking it continuously while in the ground to exhaust the beetle’s rounds, the rat bites off the head first.

(from the Encyclopaedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge by Bernard Werber)

Posted in Science & Nature

Badass Weapons Of Nature: Pistol Shrimp

Posted on by Jinavie

A gun is, without a doubt, a manmade object. It is an invention that has existed less than a thousand years in history. However, there is an animal that has been using firearms to hunt prey for a significantly longer period of time than mankind has.
The pistol shrimp is well known for its disproportionately large claw, with the other claw being much smaller like a normal shrimp. The massive claw is what is called the “pistol” and it is the weapon of choice for the shrimp.

When a pistol shrimp identifies a target, it swiftly takes aim with the claw and snaps it shut with enough force to create a bubble jet reaching a speed of almost 100km/h. Not only are bubbles produced, but the pressure wave created by the cavitation (the effect of a bubble imploding and generating energy) reaches a sound level of 218dB – which is about 100,000,000 times larger than a gunshot, or 10,000 times larger than a rocket launch. Furthermore, the energy is also released as light and heat, generating a temperature as hot as 4700°C (for comparison, the surface temperature of the sun is 5500°C).
The combination of the bubble jet, pressure wave and heat energy instantly stuns the target and the pistol shrimp proceeds to devour its prey.

Yes, the pistol shrimp has mastered a skill that humans can only dream of in comics such as the Incredible Hulk’s Thunderclap, or in games such as Guile’s Sonic Boom (from Street Fighter). It has also mastered the skill to the level of an effective ultimate move that is reliable as a hunting tool. In fact, it is quite possibly the closest any animal on Earth has gotten to an actual beam weapon.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Werther Effect

Posted on by Jinavie

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people in the developed world. Every year, approximately one million people take their own lives – far greater than the number of people dying from liver disease, Parkinson’s or even homicide. Despite being one of the most preventable causes of death, suicide still plagues society.
Among the many factors contributing to suicide attempts (mental disorder being the major one), one of the more interesting one is mass media. The effect of mass media on suicide rates can be traced back as far as 1774.

In 1774, Goethe wrote a novel called The Sorrows of Young Werther, where the hero shoots himself after an ill-fated love affair. Shortly after publication, there were many reports of young men who used the same method as Werther to commit suicide. There were even reports of people dressing up like Werther (yellow pants and blue jacket) or leaving the book open to the passage detailing his death next to themselves. After this event, the book was temporarily banned to stop the “epidemic”. Since then, the phenomenon of copycat suicides has been called the Werther effect.

The human brain is trained to think about the information it receives. This applies to suicide as well and people with mental disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder are more prone to suicidal thoughts after hearing stories about it. This effect is amplified by the media tending to glorify or beautify such deaths (as the subject tends to be a celebrity or a fictional character), causing some people to subconsciously believe that suicide is acceptable. In essence, the Werther effect is a form of peer pressure where cognitive dissonance lead people to act irrationally because others in society appear to be doing the same thing.

The Werther effect is surprisingly effective in predicting an increase in suicide attempts after the publication of news regarding suicide. On April 8, 1986, a Japanese singer called Yukko Okada, only 18 at the time, committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of her recording studio. Her popularity meant the media were over the story like hungry wolves, reporting the tragic death in every form possible. Within two weeks, 33 young people (including one nine-year old) killed themselves – 21 by jumping from buildings. This episode was dubbed Yukko Syndrome and is one of the most famous cases of the Werther effect in modern society.

Just like in the original case of the Werther effect, the suicide could be fictional and still cause an increase in suicide rates. There was a German television show called Death of a Student that depicted a railway suicide of a young man at the start of every episode. After it began airing, railway suicides by teenage males increased by 175% in Germany. Curiously, there was no increase or decrease in suicide rates via other methods, suggesting that the Werther effect not only affects the choice of method, but also induces suicidal thoughts in those who did not plan on killing themselves.

In 1987, a campaign in Vienna to inform reporters about the Werther effect and the role of the media in suicides led to a dramatic drop in reporting suicides. This was followed by an 80% drop in subway suicide and non-fatal attempts, along with a decrease in the total number of suicides.

The Werther effect is a fine example of how words can kill.