Exit Design Standards from Mice?

Recent research by a group of scientists from the National Institute of Physics in U.P. Diliman studied the behavior of mice in panic situations. According to their study, mice formed a queue and made an orderly escape when faced with a narrow door, while wider doors caused the rodents to block one another.

The research, entitled “Self-organized queuing and scale-free behavior in real escape panic” was published in two international publications, The New Scientist and Nature. This is the first time that an all-Filipino group of scientists based in the Philippines were covered by both of these journals.

Director Caesar Saloma of NIP who was involved in the research said in an interview in the New Scientist that he hoped their study will “help design buildings and escape routes that induce people to queue and delay jamming. It is not enough to increase the size and number of doors, as it may have the opposite of the desired effect.”

Panic experiments are difficult to do with humans because of ethical and legal considerations. Rodents are useful because mammals exhibit and share similar behavioral traits and capacities.

The scientists based their observations on a series of experiments using 60 mice trying to escape a water pool. Mice have a strong aversion to water. In the New Scientist interview, Saloma said “the most efficient escape (of the mice) was when the door size was only large enough for one mouse to squeeze through, as it promoted self-organized queuing. However, as soon as the door width was increased, the mice stopped lining up and competed with each other, which slowed down the overall escape rate.” If the escape doors were positioned too close together, the mice which clustered around exits interfered with each other, slowing each other down.

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Condensed from “ Fleeing mice likened to stampeding humans” an article in UPdate Diliman, August-October 2003. Image taken from Nature. Here's the New Scientist article featuring the research.

people news bits

ms. malaya fabros, arki babe, flew off to dubai last monday to seek her fate. we expect her to give us a report of her adventures in the desert soon.

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mr. yuri yturriaga, point-a-camera-at-yourself-and-smile-widely-man, has announced on friendster that he is getting married to his long time girlfriend (and i hope he doesn't mind me posting it here). wahoo! ang party sa pinas when he comes back (in two years?).

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prof. stanley fernandez' father-in-law died this morning. we offer our condolences.

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know any other news?

Dory-ism

I never realized how much I was like Dory of Finding Nemo fame until a friend of mine pointed it out to me. I entirely concur with that assessment, and I have oftentimes tried to rationalize how it could be possible for me (and Dory!) to live in the moment and almost completely fail to recall what happened the hour before.

Such forgetfulness seems to display a certain predilection for thinking random thoughts. They often come out of the blue, and if one is not careful, often out aloud. The cynical consider the Dory-like people as completely “out there”; the more sympathetic consider it part of their charm.

I can completely relate to this. One time, another friend of mine and I were discussing how a person could transform into a “taong grasa”. Some may have actually made the conscious choice, whereas others are victims of unfortunate circumstance. We got to discussing how the smallest unfortunate circumstance could make a person “snap” into “grasa”-dom. A pet fish turning belly-up in the fish bowl could be the culmination of a series of soap opera-like “kamalasan”.

There we stopped, because I knew there was a word that connoted all these. I knew it began with the letter “t” and ended with “-ic”, but I just couldn’t remember what the word was. My friend was no help, but I did figure that maybe the word I was looking for was “tragic”. The “taong grasa” came to be because of a series of “tragic” experiences. It seemed right, but it still bothered me, because I absolutely knew it wasn’t the word I was looking for.

A week passed, and I was already thinking of other things: what to wear, what to have for lunch, what day it was, and so forth. Then all of a sudden (I don’t remember what prompted me; perhaps nothing. Maybe it came out of the blue…) I knew the word I was looking for: “traumatic”. I wanted to say that the “taong grasa” could have snapped because of a series of “traumatic” experiences, not “tragic”. I was so happy that I finally found my word that I told my “taong grasa” discussion friend immediately. His reaction? A very calm “ah.” I figured that maybe he was thinking how strange it was for a person to be so obsessed to have to take an entire week to think of the word she was looking for. What he doesn’t know is that I wasn’t thinking about it at all, at least, not consciously. It just came to me.

Here’s a random thought: are people who have premonitions natural random thinkers? Because if things just “come” to them, then they must be random thinkers as well. They must be entirely open to the cosmos, like very good satellite dishes for live professional basketball feeds. Or their minds just work so fast that thoughts just seem to pop around.

I don’t get premonitions, although when I was in high school I dreamt that I broke my arm, but the next day it turned out a classmate of mine broke his. Perhaps my dream and his accident are not connected, but who knows? I’m open to the possibilities.

Is that the reason why I am an architecture student? Is it because I am open to the possibilities? I’ve always wanted to design something earth shattering, or at least something as interesting as the tower platforms of the futuristic cartoon family, the Jetsons. But to date, and definitely, to memory, I haven’t done that yet.

Are the well-known architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Tadao Ando, and Renzo Piano random thinkers? Are they Dory-like people? Do their designs “hit” them? I wonder.

To be genius would be to do something without any effort whatsoever. If the film Amadeus is anything to go by, then Mozart wrote down the symphonies that he already heard in his head. Additionally, he didn’t make any drafts. His original working copies were the first ones, without any erasures.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful? As an architect, I mean. To directly draw the design that’s already seen in the head.

I have to be honest. I’ve had to read from the beginning what I’ve already wrote to remind myself what I’ve been writing. Confusing? Let’s just say I was giving myself a mental reminder by rereading what I’ve written.

By doing the reread, I’ve come to realize that Dory, without her knowing it, is entirely creative. Everything is new to her, and so everything she sees takes on a fresh face. She is open-minded (she’s part of a non-eating-fish sharks support group, when she has no need to be) and she lets the moment inspire her, depending on what she sees and who she meets.

Dory can certainly set a new philosophy for everyone to live by. I am sure that very soon, a book will come out, expounding on her unconsciously optimistic outlook to life and living. Like the much well-read books “The Tao of Pooh” and “The Te of Piglet”, Dory’s book will inspire.

The architect should be like Dory. As a fresh graduate or as a seasoned professional, the architect should never lose the wonder to be seen in even the simplest of things or experiences. To be creative, I say, be like Dory.

One final note: do any of you know how to whale-speak? I’ve tried, but without much success. Although, come to think of it, I haven’t tried whale-speaking to a real whale. Do you think French majors of nationalities other than France are successful with their French without speaking to a single French person? In any case, I need practice.