Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Robotic Jellyfish
They can be found here, and here, and here! Thanks Skepchicks!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Youngest Full-time Professor is 19 Years Old
I don't have time to type a lot about this, but I find it fascinating. I recommend reading here. Not only is she a professor, but she teaches math and physics, notoriously hard to teach. I am sure we will not get any follow-up to the story, but I would like to know how she ends up as a teacher. I always thought child-prodigies grew up to be fairly normal, but I base that on idle speculation.
Continue Reading...Tuesday, April 15, 2008
John Wheeler
I'm sure by now, most of you know the famous physicist John Wheeler died two days ago. He is most famous for co-writing the "Bible" of gravitation. He is also known for coining many modern physics terms such as blackhole and wormhole. On top of all that, he was the thesis adviser of Richard Feynman and Kip Thorne. If you haven't already found it through Phil's blog, as I did, there is a wonderful story from one of Wheeler's students over on the Cosmic Variance blog. I suggest reading it if you don't mind some tugging on your heart strings.
Continue Reading...Sunday, April 13, 2008
Black Hole Sun Won't You Come...
Welcome to day two of my attendance at the APS meeting in St. Louis. This time, I remembered to bring my laptop with me. I am currently sitting in on a session entitled "Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes. Earlier today, I stumbled into a wonderful story-telling session about the Manhattan Project which included some wonderful little anecdotes about life at Los Alamos. One of the speakers was a British physicist who had worked there at the time. I would repeat some here but I would get the details wrong. Looks like the first talk is starting. I'd better listen up.
First up is Dr. J. R. Stone of Oxford discussing the equation of state for high density matter. The main question discussed is whether or not observational or experimental data can be used to place constraints on the equation of state of neutron star matter. One of the major pieces of data necessary for these constraints is a good measurement of gravitational mass v. radius for neutron stars. According to to Dr. Stone, "That would do it for me." Sadly, technical problems have cut this talk sort of it's ten minute allowed time. My estimate is that Dr. Jones was able to present about a third of her planned talk. I think I might have had a chance of understanding her neutron-neutron scattering data if she were given a few more minutes. If is the neutron-neutron interaction that must be fully understood in order to come up with the desired equation of state.
Talk number two is also on the equation of state for neutron starts. Dr. John Friedman is talking on astronomical constraints to the equation of state. Dr. Friedman tout that neutron stars might be strange quark stars. I'll have to look into that later. So the required astronomical include mass, moment of inertia, and spin frequency. From this talk, I have learned that if you know little about the field, the 10 minute talk format is probably not to go. Yesterday, while I was in the dark matter talks, I loved the 10 minute format because I absorbed a lot of information in little time. Knowing little about determining the equation of state of neutron stars, this talk is hard to follow, but I will talk about it anyway. Overall, I have learned that determining either the mass and moment of inertial or the mass and the gravitational wave characteristics both place good constraints on the shape of the equation of state.
On to the third talk! Guess what it is about. Come on, guess. That's right, it's another talk on the parameterization of the equation of state for a neutron star. This speaker is giving the second half of the second talk. Turns out they are testing 31 different equations of state some including all kinds of exotic matter including hyperons, mesons and quarks. One of the parameters most often used to parameterize these equations of state is the maximum allowed mass of the neutron star. Also used it causality which considers the speed of sound in the star. Redshift and rotation rate are also used in this manner. Currently, measuring the mass and radius of neutron stars is quite difficult. The four parameters mentioned above can be used to determine bulk properties of nuclear matter through the determination of the equation of state and therefore would have application beyond neutron stars. As you might be able to tell, this talk cleared up the previous one a little.
I'm going to sign off now to save some battery power for the dark matter talks.
Edit: I've decided to take pen and paper notes for the Dark Matter talks. I'll tell y'all about them later.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Laptops and Bad Hair
Since I just spent a full day at the APS meeting in St. Louis, I thought I would share my impressions. I spent all day listening to talks on dark matter detectors and liquid argon purification. Amazing right? Actually, I really enjoyed it. I learned about a dark matter detector called LUX (site is still under construction)that I had not heard of before. Though it is not new in the techniques that it employs (it is a large liquid Xenon time projection chamber), it does have quite the measurement range. There are some exciting times ahead for those looking for dark matter.
One the things that really blew my mind was the number of people with open laptops, working on their presentations during someone else's presentation. I can honestly that that number if approximately 1/3 of the total audience. If I had known there was free wireless, I would have brought my laptop and done some live blogging. There is always tomorrow (or Monday or Tuesday).
The highlight of the conference was, by far, the hair of the physicists. I saw long gray scraggly ponytails, frizzy scientist puffros, and foot-long beards. It was great. I can only hope there was a correlation between beard length and academic prominence.
Tomorrow, I will listen to more talks on dark matter. This time, it looks like it will be more theoretical. Joy! Sadly, I will be missing the morning talks because of a previous engagement. I will be missing the one talk I think will be crazy. I'll link to the abstract here. It is only a 10 minute talk but I think it would be a wonderfully strange 10 minutes. I should be able to make it in time to hear a few on gravitational wave detectors or x-ray bursts as well.
Tune in tomorrow for a live blogging on dark matter, if I remember to take my laptop.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Any Ideas on Where to Start?
In our meetings so far, we've discussed once or twice where we want to go as a group. We came to a consensus that we'd all like to move in a direction towards making our conversations more useful, towards using our skeptical talents to analyze issues that aren't so easy. We don't want to be shooting fish in a barrel forever. What's the point in putting up articles that just tear down articles written by other people? Is anything accomplished?
Well, I was reading a post on denialism blog about how science defenders can empower the anti-science people by writing about them and their activities. The final paragraph of that article seemed to address some of the problem we at the SLSS have been having with the direction of the group and the blog.
While debunking silly nonsense is fun, and I've certainly indulged, it's not as helpful as demonstrating the fundamental dishonesty of organized anti-science. Ultimately our goal is educating people what real science is and, importantly, what real science is not and how to tell the difference. Merely showing how a given argument is silly or incorrect doesn't help a great deal. However, showing people how to tell the difference between these lies and the real deal is a far more valuable skill to impart, and I think that's what a majority of us are doing when we confront nonsense from denialists everywhere.
I've nothing to add to that. Continue Reading...
Monday, March 3, 2008
It May Be 8 PM, But I Think I Need More Coffee
I'm too bogged down with homework to make this post anything like what it should be, so I apologize ferociously. In fact, I can't even spare the time to read the paper I found. I'm lobbing it to you, dear reader.
So can someone please tell me what The Nonequilibrium Nature of Culinary Evolution is about, and why it's on the physics arXiv?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Further Proof Science is Sexy
Dr. T. Stuart Meloy has developed spinal implant to treat bladder and pain problems that has the sexy side effect of causing orgasms in most women. According to an LA Times article:
Women who have used the device say they feel as if their clitoris and vagina are actually being stimulated, to quite realistic effect. ("One woman asked me, 'Would it be considered adultery if I gave the remote control to someone other than my husband?' " Meloy says.)Dr. Meloy is now looking for FDA approval to use the device to treat female orgasm dysfunction.
Some volunteers also report fleeting episodes of clenched foot muscles, Meloy says, probably a result of electrical pulses leaving the spine and stimulating nearby motor nerves. (He wonders if the phenomenon might somehow be related to a common orgasm description: "My toes curled.")
And when the device's pulse intensity is cranked up to maximum, Meloy says, some women find their vaginal and rectal muscles squeezing rhythmically in time with the pulses, even before the orgasmic finale.
But that's not all!
Meloy says he has also implanted two impotent men with the device. Both volunteers were able to achieve an erection, he says, and reportedly had powerful ejaculations.
As soon as the good Doctor finds a way to bring the price down from a steep $12,000, perhaps we'll see a slightly less frustrated America. And some say science is boring...
Read more here and over at Skepchick. Here is the LA Times article. Continue Reading...
Graduate Students are Good for Something
Put this in your "Cool Gadgets" notebook. I know you all keep one. Clay Moulton, a student from Virginia Tech, has invented a gravity lamp, as in a lamp powered by gravity. You can read the full article here. The lamp is powered by a slowly falling weight which spins a rotor to light an LED, and as a result, a weight must be lifted to the top of the lamp every four hours. The lamp puts out 600-800 lumens (enough to light the den), and the machinery of the lamp is estimated to last upwards of 200 years. Way to go Clay.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Valentine's Day Special: Scientific Lovers
Those of you in the Boston/Providence area can avail yourselves of a service that will match you with a partner based on your own DNA! It's science! Yes, on ScientificMatch.com you can find a mate who is genetically compatible with you. Based on what criteria, you ask? What genes are examined? These questions and more will be answered in this Gateway Skepticism Valentine's Day Special: Scientific Lovers.
The site is actually very forthcoming with information. They've got a long page detailing their claims and the evidence for them. The first question they tackle is about the genes. What kind of analysis can they perform on genes to match you with a potential relationship?Physical chemistry is based on the immune system. When we analyze your DNA, we look exclusively at your immune system genes. So, quite literally, when we say that two people have “chemistry”, we’re saying that their immune system genes are perfectly matched with each other.
That's what they do: look at genes in the major histocompatibility complex, MHC, and see how many you share with a potential mate. The fewer you have in common, the better matched you are with each other. It seems a rather simple metric considering the... well, rather sexy claims being made for the service.
By perfectly matched, we mean different.
After we analyze your DNA, we match you with other people who have different immune system genes from yourself.
The theory is that nature wants us to breed with other people who have different immune systems because it creates babies with a wider variety of immune system genes, and therefore, more robust immune systems—in other words, healthier babies.When you share chemistry with someone, you significantly increase your chances of realizing these amazing benefits:
To me, these claims appear outlandish. However, my opinion counts for naught when references are provided for each claim. Yes, you read that correctly: it's a dating site that relies on published scientific research. Some of you might be pulling your credit cards out already, but let's examine in more detail first.1. Chances are, you’ll love the natural body fragrance of your partner--they’ll smell sexier than other people
To back up this assertion, they cite an experiment in which women were asked to smell sweaty t-shirts worn by men. The relative rating by the women of pleasure of the smells was correlated with the difference in MHC genes between smeller and smelly smellee. A handy overview is given at the Wikipedia article for the author, Claus Wedekind.
This claim is actually pretty well established. It's a little weird, but could be true. If someone is matched to you by this service, you might like the smell of their sweat better than someone more similar to you in MHC genes—unless you're on the pill, in which case it's opposite. I wouldn't say it's enough to base a relationship on, so what about the other claims?2. You’ll probably have a more satisfying sex life
You may have noticed I presented three claims together—and what amazing claims they are!—and were wondering why. Well, as their primary support, these three wonderful sexy claims cite one and the same paper. That's right, on the same page that cites over 40 primary research papers and books, fully half of the amazing benefits of this DNA-matching service are resting on one published report. Let's read, shall we?
3. If you’re a woman, chances are you’ll have a higher rate of orgasms
4. There’s a lower chance of cheating in your exclusive relationships when your DNA is matched properly
The paper (full reference below) can be found here. It approaches this question from a psychology perspective, administering a questionnaire about sexual satisfaction, cheating, etc. Honestly, I don't know enough about psychology research or statistics to know if there are any weaknesses in the study, save a few things.
First, the study involved only 48 couples. For such broad results, I would like to see something larger. Second, the participants were taken from a college campus and had mean ages 20.5 and 21.3 years for men and women, respectively. Hardly a representative group, especially for satisfaction in relationships and sexual behavior. Are 20-year-olds likely to be using a dating website? Third, I haven't seen any replication. Only three papers have cited this one (it is from 2006, after all) and none have checked the results.
None of these perceived-by-me weaknesses are deal-breakers for the accuracy of the study. It could be true that all three benefits of MHC-matching based on this paper and advertised by scientificmatch.com will come to you with a properly matched partner. But I wouldn't start a business around it, myself.5. As a couple, you're probably more fertile
This is based on a few studies demonstrating that couples with dissimilar MHC genes have a lower rate of "spontaneous, unprovoked abortion." The studies appear pretty legit, but is having a lower rate of "spontaneous, unprovoked abortion" really the same thing as being "more fertile" as was claimed? The site is a little shifty about this point.To be clear, they don’t show a correlation between chemistry and the ability to get pregnant. That wasn’t investigated in these studies, so they don’t disprove the correlation, either.
Riiiight. They don't say it'll happen, but they don't say it won't happen, do they?6. Your children have a better chance of being healthy
This claim is extensively documented in humans and in other species. It seems obvious to me as a non-biologist who has scanned these papers that having many different haplotypes of the MHC genes will help prevent against some diseases and will possibly make the immune system better in general. This hypothesis has been tested and seems to be correct, again from a non-biologist's perspective.
I don't know about you, but I wasn't too convinced. The evidence for the good, fun stuff was a little shaky. Sure, having a slightly higher chance of healthy babies is great, but I'd really like to know more about the "more orgasm" thing. Can we get another study on that?
For those of you who have used or do use dating websites, maybe this one tickles your fancy. It certainly can't be any less scientific than some popular dating sites out there. I don't think it could hurt to give it a shot.
There's my Valentine's Day special skeptical gift: scientific analysis, tentative conclusions, and weak recommendations. It isn't romantic, it isn't a cure-all for your love problems, and it probably doesn't make blood flow to your naughty bits.
But it is the best thing I can give you: reality.
Full reference: Garver-Apgar, Christine E, Steven W Gangestad, Randy Thornhill, Robert D Miller, & Jon J Olp (2006) “Major Histocompatibility Complex Alleles, Sexual Responsivity, and Unfaithfulness in Romantic Couples,” Psychological Science, vol 17, no 10, pp 830-835.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Noise and Fluctuation
Remember The Inner Life of a Cell? I've mentioned it before. Every time I see it, I think that the molecules seem a bit too anthropomorphic for my taste; they're all running around very purposefully and directly. Does anything about that strike you as being strange? It does me.
It strikes PZ Myers as being strange, too. He recently wrote a criticism of this video that captures very well the essence of its nonphysicality.
The feature that's missing from the video is noise. Every molecule in this video should be moving randomly at each moment, but with an average motion in some particular direction. I think PZ gets it right when he says,For purposes of drama and minimizing complexity and confusion, though, the animators of that video have stripped out one of the most essential properties of systems at that scale: noise, variability, and the stochastic nature of chemical interactions.
Not only can thermal or chemical fluctuations not be ignored, there is evidence that for some systems noise can be important (PDF) to their functions.
The reason I wanted to link this was to put up a cool animation of single-molecule-imaging of a protein binding to DNA and exhibiting stochastic motion. Sadly, I couldn't find it online—here's the reference, though. Instead I'll show an also-cool animation of a simulated actin fiber pushing an obstacle. Actin generates cellular motion, basically by converting thermal fluctuations into mechanical work. Each monomer is small and can sneak in under the fluctuating obstacle to make the actin fiber longer. Slowly, eventually, gradually things move in more or less the needed direction. It's awesome but overlooked by the Inner Life video. So enjoy this low-tech animation, pilfered from Anders Carlsson.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Scientists Create Synthetic DNA
As the title says, "US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria." You can read about it here. There article in Science can be found here. Biologists are having a good week.
Continue Reading...Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Scientist Becomes First Man to Clone Himself
Read the article from Richard Dawkins' site here. This is being condemned by the Vatican and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. I will not weigh in on the moral issue here. The scientific article can be found in the the journal Stem Cells. It has graciously been made open-access.
Continue Reading...Friday, January 4, 2008
This Book is Everywhere
A new book is out about evolution and creationism. Published by the National Academy of Sciences, it aims to explain to the general public why evolution is science and creationism isn't.
It seems I can't turn around without seeing this story. Evolving Thoughts talked about it and linked to a press release. I get the New York Times Science section on my Google homepage, and they've got a story about it. Also on my homepage are updates from ScienceNOW, and what should I see but another mention of this book.
So, with all this sciencey-bloggy-media blitz, I figured I'd check it out. They've got it online for free, you know. A mere few pages in, what should I see but that one of the authors is in the biology department of a certain local university. Perhaps we have someone to contact about a lecture for an upcoming meeting.
I'll have a review soon.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
A Nomination
Blake Stacey has a post up about what role a Presidential science advisor should take and about sending messages across an ideological divide.
A possibly throwaway comment near the end caught my eye, and I want to make a formal proclamation. I don't represent the Society in this—I haven't yet mentioned it to others—only myself.
I would love to see Phil Plait, The Bad Astronomer, as Presidential science advisor. Who's with me?
ADDENDUM: When linking to Phil, I noticed he linked something interesting himself. LiveScience has a list of the Presidential candidates' positions on assorted science issues.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Happy Birthday Arthur C. Clarke!
World famous science fiction write and inventor of the communications satellite Arthur. C. Clarke turned 90 on Sunday. His old television show Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious Universe is part of the reason that I am a scientist. CNN has a little write up on his birthday wishes. Here's hoping they come true.
I also recommend checking out Clarke's list of predictions for the future of science. Some of them are quite fun.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Letter to Ben (and Everyone Else)
By now, I'd wager you've read about the proposed Science Debate 2008. Denialism has writen about it twice. Steve Novella at NeuroLogica put up a post about it today. You can find plenty more if you want. And the second denialism article links two articles in popular outlets (LA Times and Huffington Post, resp.) by some of the organizers/supporters of Science Debate 2008, including Chris Mooney and Lawrence Krauss.
The point is, both Mark Hoofnagle and Steve Novella, whom I enjoy reading and respect very much, are supportive of the idea. However, I don't think I am... though I'm not sure. At the very least, my feelings on this issue are complex.
Pro:
Con:
On that last point, however, there is a bit more that I can say. As you may remember, the doctor provided us with some poll numbers about belief in evolution. Tucked away in that article are also questions regarding candidates and evolution.
More than 50% of respondents said knowing a candidate did not believe in evolution wouldn't affect their vote. Of those who said it would, just under 30% said they'd be less likely to vote for an evolution denier, and about 15% said they'd be more likely. And 70% said a candidate's views on evolution are not relevant to a campaign.
These statistics can be taken several ways. I won't get into that here. The purpose of this article was to stimulate discussion. I've presented some of my thoughts on a science debate, but what I really want to know is what you think.
Anyone who is reading this, put your thoughts in the comments below. Should we encourage a presidential debate on scientific issues? Would it help? Or would the effects of such a debate run counter to the purpose of this and other skeptical organizations? Don't be shy. Step up and tell me your opinions.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
NIH Peer Review of Peer Review
NIH is going to upend the tea table on their grant peer review system, according to ScienceNOW. They're looking to address problems such as, "[t]he average first-time NIH grantee is getting older, NIH budgets are nearly flat, and science has grown more complex." Flat budgets are nothing new in physics, but I can see how the high average age would be a problem: not getting NIH money until your lab is already established could be frustrating to a young researcher trying to do that establishing.
Some of the proposed changes look good to me, such as "permitting reviewers to rate the reviews of their colleagues, which they can’t do now." Nothing is worse than having a great project not funded because of an unfriendly reviewer. Of course, this change might also lead to a real softball reviewer getting to review everything. Everyone wins when standards are low!
Other suggestions, I'm not so hot on. They're considering "essentially doing away with preliminary data and instead focusing on a project's potential impact." Now, it is the NIH, so their aims might be well served by focusing in the direction of greatest potential impact. Maybe they'd benefit from that format of grant applications. But if one is reading mostly about how great and awesome new results are going to be but one isn't able to see whether there's already supporting data or not, I could see one funding a lot of research down blind alleys only to encounter dead ends.
However, I wish them the best in their quest. Science works best when examining and cutting away what doesn't work. And in today's political climate, everyone is staring down a dearth of dollars. Combining the lack of funds with a keen ability for self-reflection could produce the results needed to keep NIH's head above water.
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