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big bang cosmology

2007-10-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

i was just reading about the big bang theory of how our particular universe began and thinking about how well this cosmology explains our universe.

the most successful test of the theory is the measurement of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation (see nobel prize in physics, 2006). The CMB is the very first light we know how to "see" after the big bang, and it only became visible 300,000 years after the big bang happened. it's fantastically exciting that the big bang theory matches so well to the experiment we performed (remember: science it works, bitches!), but there remain many unanswered (and currently unanswerable) issues to understand!

what existed before the big bang? what is dark energy? immediately after the big bang, why were there 10,000,000,000 (ten billion) anti-particles for every 10,000,000,001 (ten billion AND ONE) particles? i keep reading and learning more, trying to understand life, the universe, and everything, but i'm left with unsatisfactory justifications to explain away problems.

the WMAP cosmology tutorial states,

It is beyond the realm of the Big Bang Model to say what gave rise to the Big Bang. There are a number of speculative theories about this topic, but none of them make realistically testable predictions as of yet.

well, that sucks!! i mean, maybe there are other universes, just as there are surely life forms elsewhere in our universe... we just can't prove it (yet?). we dont know how to prove it because we havent developed the ability to find it.

creating "speculative theories" about these lingering questions over a few beers is quite fun, but in my mind it always comes back to the question of "how do we test the theories?" in order to know whether the big bang model of the universe is completely correct, we must develop ways to detect other remnants from the earliest parts of the universe.

but i got nothing.

what are the tests? how can we "see" anything earlier than 300,000 years after the big bang? will dark energy give us a clue? what the hell is dark energy? it's the stuff that is 70% of all the stuff that is our universe, but how does it manage to accelerate the expansion of the universe? (... if it does?) we're currently developing the technology for experiments that will potentially be able to detect the bizzaro entity called dark energy... but are there any other tests we can perform?

i still feel somewhat unsatisfied about the finer points of big bang theory (the answer 42 seems way easier to just accept, doesnt it? but it's ultimately way less satisfying).

first art work by vista arts.

Now THAT's what I call decor!

2007-10-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been taking your morning shower and suddenly have a burning desire to know the atomic mass of praseodymium*? Fret no more.

You can now get a Periodic Table Shower Curtain for only $30!

Never be stuck trying to remember the atomic number of your favorite element while conditioning your hair. Memorize the lanthanides and actinides while shaving!

*140.90765 (Pr)

(the original place where the image is from seems to be sold out, so the buy link is from another site that seems to have it available)

Happy 50th, Space Age!

2007-10-04T09:39:00.001-07:00

science tattoos

2007-09-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

carl zimmer at the loom blog is collecting pictures of
scientists and their tattoos. he has a pretty huge collection now at his flickr gallery.

i've wanted another tattoo for a while now and recently i've considered a science tattoo. what better than science and art? i've been thinking about it and honing in on my science tattoo idea. i think i want a colorful spiral galaxy on my arm somewhere... i'm not exactly sure and i'll have to find an artist to create a cool looking spiral from some photos i have. what do you think?

more importantly.... do any of you have cool science tattoos?

here are a few of my favorites from the gallery...

Development Primer: 3 Models of Sex Determination and Dosage Compensation, Part 3

2007-08-12T10:57:00.001-07:00

Mus (mouse)

Of our three models, the mouse (being a mammal) is most closely analogous to humans. Here, as with the flies, XX animals are female and XY animals are male. This time, however, sex determination depends upon the Y-linked gene Sry instead of the X:A ratio. If you have Sry, you become a male. Note the implications of this for individuals with an abnormal number of sex chromosomes. An XO fly would become a (pseudo)male due to the X:A ratio, whereas an XO human would become a female (with Turner syndrome) due to lack of Sry. An XXY fly would be female, whereas an XXY human would be male (with Klinefelter's syndrome).

Overall sex determination in mammals relies primarily on differentiation of the gonad. The embryonic gonad is bipotential (neither male nor female but capable of differentiating into either) and contains both somatic cells and germ cells (the cells that will give rise to the germ line, i.e. sperm or eggs). The somatic cells of the gonad will differentiate into either Sertoli cells (for testes) or Follicle cells (for ovaries); the hormone production of the gonad will then affect development of the rest of the body.

So we're looking for a cellular mechanism affecting gonad differentiation. As it turns out, there are two primary exogenous growth factors (proteins excreted from a cell that affect growth and development) expressed by the somatic cells: FGF9 and WNT4. FGF9 causes the somatic cells to differentiate into Sertoli cells, and inhibits Wnt4 expression. WNT4 causes the somatic cells to differentiate into Follicle cells, and inhibits Fgf9 expression. Initially, the somatic cells express both factors, and they balance each other out. But as development progresses, the balance gets tipped one way or the other.

In mammals, SRY promotes expression of FGF9, thus tipping the balance toward male development. However, a similar mechanism in other vertebrates might not require a single gene like Sry. For instance, for many animals (such as crocodiles) sex determination is affected by environmental factors like temperature. It's entirely possible that these environmental factors could be affecting a balance such as that between FGF9 and WNT4.

This sex determination mechanism takes place primarily in the gonad; a different mechanism entirely is needed for dosage compensation in all the cells of the body. Unlike the worm mechanism of reducing each X by half in hermaphrodites or the fly mechanism of doubling expression of the male X, dosage compensation in mice and humans works by (almost) completely silencing one of the two female X chromosomes.

In both males and female cells, the autosomes produce enough of a certain blocking factor (BF) to bind to one X chromosome and block expression of the gene Xist. In a cell with only one X chromosome (i.e. a normal male), that' the end of the story. In a cell with two X chromosomes (i.e. a normal female), Xist is expressed on the chromosome that did not receive BF. Xist is a gene that does not code for protein; its end product is untranslated RNA. Xist RNA aggregates to form a region in the nucleus that excludes RNA ploymerase II and transcription factors. The X chromosome migrates into this region, thus silencing it.

The paternal X chromosome carried by the sperm is imprinted so it will always be chosen for inactivation in the zygote. Once the embryo reaches the blastocyst stage of development, X-inactivation is temporarily turned off. As the cells then differentiate, X-inactivation is reinitiated. This time, the decision of which X chromosome to deactivate is random. Thus, the adult animal will be mosaic for X-inactivtion; some of the animal's cells will have the paternal X deactivated, and some cells will have the maternal X deactivated.

The location where BF binds to the X chromosome, since the region runs opposite to Xist, is called Tsix. If Tsix is deleted from one X chromosome, then that chromosome will always be chosen for X-inactivation, since BF cannot bind it. A Tsix deletion in an XY cell will result in ectopic (out-of-place) X-inactivation, which is lethal.

Mouse summary:
Two sex chromosomes -- XY male, XX female. FGF9 and WNT4, mutually inhibitory growth factors, are expressed in the gonad somatic cells. Y chromosome carries Sry, which promotes FGF9 and tips the balance to testis development; otherwise, WNT4 tips balance to ovary development. X-inactivation occurs by transcription of Xist RNA, which forms a nuclear domain excluding transcription factors. Autosomes produce enough blocking factor (BF) to rescue one X chromosome from inactivation, by binding Tsix and thereby blocking Xist. The paternal X is imprinted to be always chosen for inactivation in the zygote; at the blastocyst stage, X-inactivation is reset and randomized.

(Cross-posted from Synapostasy)

Development Primer: 3 Models of Sex Determination and Dosage Compensation, Part 2

2007-08-11T13:01:00.001-07:00

Drosophila
Drosophila's sex chromosomes are perhaps more familiar-looking, in that it has an X and a Y chromosome, with XX animals being phenotypically female and XY animals being phenotypically male. As we'll see, however, the mechanisms are vastly different from what we see in humans and other mammals.

Sex determination and dosage compensation begin as they did in C. elegans with reading the X:A ratio. This time, however, the X-linked numerator factors (like daughterless and sisterless) drive Sxl (sex lethal) expression from a promoter that results in the code for a fully-active SXL protein (nomenclature note: italics are typically used for the name of the gene, capital letters are used for the corresponding protein). The A-linked denominator factors (like deadpan) bind to the numerator factors to inhibit their activity. Thus, if the fly has only one X chromosome, the denominator factors will titrate out the numerator factors, so Sxl only gets up and running in XX animals.

SXL a protein that alters RNA splicing. Most mRNA when it is first transcribed from DNA must first be processed within the nucleus before it is shipped out for protein translation. This processing includes removing introns, non-coding regions of DNA within a gene. Normal Sxl mRNA has a premature stop codon in its third intron; if the cell tries to make protein from this mRNA, it will stop translation short, resulting in a non-functioning protein. SXL protein is responsible for altering splicing to remove this intron so the cell can make more fully functional SXL.

Thus, SXL drives its own positive feedback loop. Both XX and XY animals express Sxl mRNA from the normal promoter. In XY animals, there isn't ever any SXL around to splice this mRNA, so no SXL is made. In XX animals, the numerator factors drive SXL expression at the beginning of development from a special promoter that doesn't require splicing, so there's enough SXL to kick-start splicing of the normal mRNA and keep generating more SXL long after the numerator factors stop working.

SXL is then responsible for proper splicing of tra to its active form, which in turn (in conjunction with tra-2) alters splicing of the transcription factor dsx, which causes differentiation to the female phenotype.

SXL also inhibits msls, a gene which otherwise would initiate dosage compensation by increasing expression from the male X. Note that in C. elegans, dosage compensation meant scaling down expression in the female, but in Drosophila, dosage compensation means scaling up expression in the male.

Drosophila summary:
Two sex chromosomes -- XX female, XY male. Numerator factors drive expression of fully-functional SXL in XX animal, kicking off SXL positive feedback loop. SXL activates pathway leading to female development. SXL inhibits msls pathway to dosage compensation. In the absence of SXL (i.e. in XY animals), msls drives increased expression from the single X chromosome.

(Cross-posted from Synapostasy)

Development Primer: 3 Models of Sex Determination and Dosage Compensation, Part 1

2007-08-10T15:58:00.001-07:00

You're probably aware that a person's sex is typically determined by their combination of sex chromosomes. In humans, females have two X chromosomes, whereas males have an X and a Y. But how do you go from X and Y to boy and girl? And what does the cell have to do to compensate for the chromosome differences between the sexes?

Sex chromosomes pose two interesting questions in the study of development:

Sex determination: How does the cell interpret the data from the sex chromosomes to result in phenotypic sex?
Dosage compensation: The sex chromosomes carry many genes that aren't sex-specific; that is, both male and female cells need the products of those genes in approximately equal amounts. Without dosage compensation, a cell with two X chromosomes will produce twice as much of a given X-linked gene product as a cell with one X chromosome. How does the cell regulate sex chromosome expression so that cells with unequal sex chromosomes express sex-linked genes equally?

The animal kingdom employs a number of different mechanisms for dealing with these two questions. Let's take a brief look at sex determination and dosage compensation in three model organisms: the nematode worm (Caenorabditis elegans), the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), and the common mouse (Mus musculus).

C. elegans
C. elegans is a tiny invertebrate worm with just one kind of sex chromosome: X. A normal worm with two X chromosomes (XX) is a hermaphrodite, producing both sperm and eggs and capable of self-fertilization. A normal worm with one X chromosome (XO) is a male; they're smaller and capable of mating with hermaphrodites.

The pathway leading to sex determination and dosage compensation is initiated by "reading" the X-to-autosome (X:A) ratio. (Autosomes are any chromosomes that aren't sex chromosomes.) In C. elegans, the first main gene in the signal transduction pathway is xol-1 (XO lethal 1, so named because mutations of the gene are lethal to animals with XO genotype). The autosomes express a number of genes, such as sea-1, that promote xol-1 expression; these are called denominator factors, since they show up on the bottom of the X:A ratio. Each X chromosome carries genes like sex-1 and fox-1 that inhibit xol-1 expression; these are called numerator factors. An XO cell doesn't produce enough numerator factors to "cancel out" the denominator factors, so xol-1 is "turned on." An XX cell has twice as much of each numerator factor, enough to "turn off" xol-1.

Xol-1 is the first in a series of several regulatory genes. Since the genes regulate each other, activity alternates down the chain. If xol-1 is on, then it turns off sdc-2, which means her-1 gets turned on, etc. Alternatively, if xol-1 is off, then sdc-2 gets to turn on, and that turns off her-1, etc. This pathway ultimately leads to expression of transcription factors (gene-regulating proteins) specific for either hermaphrodite or male differentiation.

Loss-of-function mutations of some of the genes in this pathway can cause "transformation" to the wrong sexual phenotype. For example, in XO animals her-1 is normally turned on, and we expect to get a male. But if we mutate her-1 so it can't perform its function, then the rest of the pathway downstream acts as if her-1 is off and we get a hermaphrodite phenotype. (Genes are often named according to the phenotype of the mutation that led to their discovery; thus, her-1 got its name for turning XO animals into hermaphrodites.)

So that's sex determination, but what about dosage compensation? It turns out that dosage compensation is activated by sdc-2. Dosage compensation in C. elegans acts by cutting expression of both X chromosomes in half in XX animals. That way, two X chromosomes at half-expression result in the same amount of product as one X chromosome at full expression. That's also why xol-1 mutations are lethal for XO animals; without xol-1 to regulate it, sdc-2 gets turned on when it shouldn't be. That in turn activates dosage compensation, and with only one X-chromosome at half its normal expression, the cell doesn't have enough X-linked gene product to survive.

C. elegans summary:
One sex chromosome -- XO males, XX hermaphrodites. X:A ratio read by X-linked inhibition of xol-1, affecting downstream chain of regulatory genes. Dosage compensation reduces expression from each X chromosome by half in XX animals.

(Cross-posted from Synapostasy)

mars blueberries

2007-07-31T09:32:00.000-07:00

the informative space.com put together a list of the top 10 most amazing things discovered by the mars rovers, spirit and opportunity. everyone likes their lists and i think it's great that there's finally one about my favorite robots!

items included on the list are the first meteorite ever found on another planet and the possibility that mars smells like rotten eggs from all the sulfur on its surface!! my personal favorite discovery by the rovers was definitely the blueberries!

Scientists aren't completely sure what causes these little rocks to have such spherical shapes and pure contents, but they have a good theory. the BB-sized spheres are mostly made of hematite, an oxide of iron. if the martian spheres are formed similarly to blueberry stones found on earth in utah, then over time, water seeps through cracks, spaces and pores in the martian dirt.... eventually, the hematite dissolves out of the water and the weathering of the area causes the shape (or something like that... geologists, help me out?). so this would mean.... that there was once flowing water on mars!

cool stuff. i havent read much more about these blueberries recently. anyone else seen articles about them? anyway, neat top 10 list and finally some good press for NASA!

another moment of science

2007-07-19T07:31:00.000-07:00

the ten finalists for the "moment of science", science experiment video contest have been announced!! i'll share a couple that i thought were especially entertaining and then you can go to the skepchick blog to see the rest and vote for your favorite!

i actually thought of an experiment to do, but i've been too busy with working and traveling (and, more importantly, lacking the props i need for the demonstration) to enter my video on time. i think i'll postpone my contribution until i return to austin. stay tuned.

in the meantime, enjoy....

Functional fixedness and Japanese game shows

2007-07-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

Problem solving is one of the big questions still facing psychologists. How do we solve problems? And what gets in the way of our problem solving?

One of the big difficulties that people face in problem solving is called functional fixedness. Certain types of problems require that we think of a novel use for an object in order to obtain the solution. Functional fixedness gets in the way by latching on to what we know about an object's normal use and refusing to let us think of anything else. For the ultimate success story in overcoming functional fixedness, think of MacGyver. For him, practically nothing has a fixed mundane use; paper clips become lock picks or radio antennae, and chewing gum can defuse a bomb.

Let's take a look at a few examples of functional fixedness-related problems:

Q: You are in a bare room. Two ropes hang from the ceiling; your job is to tie their ends together. Unfortunately, when you're holding the end of one rope, you can't reach the other one. A box of tools sits in one corner of the room, including a hammer, a saw, and a screwdriver. How do you tie the ropes together?

Once you've given that riddle plenty of thought, read the answer below:

A: If you had a counterweight, you could tie it to one of the ropes and start it swinging like a pendulum. Then you could grab the other rope, pull it towards the center, and catch the other rope as it swung toward you. In this case, you have to use one of the tools as the counterweight! (I'd advise against using the saw, though, unless you're a big fan of "The Pit and the Pendulum.")

How'd you do? People who have problems with that riddle tend to do so because of functional fixedness; hammers are usually for pounding nails, not swinging around on ropes. To solve the problem, you have to overcome your preconceived notions of what the tools are for.

Here's another riddle, to demonstrate how even a slight change in phrasing can contribute to a functional fixedness problem:

Q: You've arranged a romantic evening for you and your sweetheart. You told your darling to meet you at a local motel, and that your door will be the one with three candles standing on it at eye level. Okay, you great romancer, now how are you going to get the candles to stand on the door? All you brought to work with is a cardboard box containing three small candles, a book of matches, and a handful of tacks.

Once you've given that a good think, here's the same riddle, with one slight change:

Q: You've arranged a romantic evening for you and your sweetheart. You told your darling to meet you at a local motel, and that your door will be the one with three candles standing on it at eye level. Okay, you great romancer, now how are you going to get the candles to stand on the door? All you brought to work with are three small candles, a book of matches, a handful of tacks, and an empty cardboard box.

Now here's the answer (don't read until you're read for it):

A: Empty the box, if necessary. Use the tacks to pin the cardboard box to the door at eye level. Set the candles on top of the box, and light them with the matches.

Most people find the second phrasing of the problem easier to solve than the first; that's because of functional fixedness. In the first problem, you get hooked on the idea that the box is only there to hold the other stuff. In the second problem, since the box is already empty and not assigned a function, it's easier to think of it as a potential tool in solving the problem.

This is fascinating stuff on its own, but I wouldn't be bringing it up unless I could tie it in to something quirky, like a Japanese game show. This whole clip is entertaining, but in particular we get a functional fixedness problem right off the bat with the first contestant:

All the contestant has to do is pass through the hole. In this case, the first hole is shaped like a human caricature with a tiny body and giant head. It's obvious that the arms and legs of the person-hole are too small for anyone to fit through, but the contestant gets caught in the trap of functional fixedness. He tries to put his head through the head-hole, arms through the arm-holes, and legs through the leg-holes. It doesn't seem to occur to him to try to fit his whole body through the over-sized head-hole.

Unfortunately, though psychologists have come a long way in classifying different kinds of problem solving behavior (like functional fixedness), we've still got a ways to go before we understand the brain mechanisms behind such behaviors. But identifying a phenomenon is the first step to understanding it.

Can you think of any other examples of functional fixedness problems?

Oooh, pictures!

2007-07-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

(Credit N. Seery, Wellcome Images)

In case you haven't heard yet, the Wellcome Trust has just released a vast archive of scientific and medical images, both historical and contemporary, all freely available online under a Creative Commons license. Some of these images are just gorgeous. I don't know about you, but I've got some exploring to do.

(via Skepchick)

Salsa con cavity

2007-07-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

The brain has its work cut out for it when it comes to interpreting visual sensory input. It must render a three-dimensional representation of the world out of the two-dimensional image that falls upon the retina. Often this 2D image can be ambiguous; that's where top-down processing comes in. Top-down processing is when your perception is influenced by prior experience and expectations. (It's the counterpart to bottom-up processing, wherein your perception is influenced directly by fresh sensory data.) As a nice example of a top-down effect, take a look at this picture of a Martian crater:

To most people, the image on the left looks like a dome, and the one on the right looks like a crater. In fact, it's the same image, turned 180 degrees. The image is two-dimensional. To impose concavity upon the image, your brain makes use of what it knows about lighting. On Earth, objects tend to be lit from above, so for the image on the left, your brain assumes that it's looking at a dome lit from above rather than a crater lit from below. That's top-down processing; your preconceived notions of how light falls on objects affects how you perceive an ambiguous shape.

One of my favorite illusions resulting from misdirected top-down processing is the inverted mask illusion. Here, your assumptions about light and the shape of faces (noses tend to stick out at you, not in away from you) lead your brain to create an incorrect 3D model of what it's seeing, and from that incorrect model your brain perceives motion where there is none.

One more illusion: click here to see a spinning silhouette.

Most people tend to see this figure as spinning clockwise, her right leg extended. But with a little practice, you can train yourself to flip her mentally and see her spinning counterclockwise with her left leg extended (apparently looking at her shadow may help you make the switch). Since it's a silhouette, you have no definite information as to which leg is in front of the other, or whether the extended leg is pointing towards you or away from you. But once your brain picks a particular model, it interprets motion based on that model.

It just goes to show that sometimes (for perceptual psychology in particular) one of the best ways to see how a system works is to look at how and when the system goes wrong.

(Thanks to Bad Astronomy for the first and third demos)

a moment of science

2007-06-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

an awesome idea from rebecca at skepchick.org. i'll see if i can contribute...

Noooooooooo! (Awesomeness Delayed for CERN)

2007-06-25T13:51:00.001-07:00

Via Scientific American, it seems the opening of the Large Hadron Collider (the next particle accelerator to end all particle accelerators) has been officially delayed until May 2008. The breakdown of a superconducting magnet under a high-pressure test last March and a number of other minor delays have ruled out the test run planned for this December.

On the bright side, this gives all us would-be basement particle physicists a chance to catch up, right? I don't know about you, but I'm this close to finding the Higgs boson using a washing machine and an old TV set.

More parasite fun!

2007-06-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

Two more parasite stories to share today.

First, another mind-control parasite. The host organisms we looked at last time were all invertebrates; snails, ants, crickets, moths, and the like. But here's a parasite that invades the brains of mice and rats. The protozoan Toxoplasma gondii invades a mouse host, and can only further its life cycle if that host is eaten by a cat. Mice normally have a fear response to the scent of cat urine, but Toxoplasma camps out in the mouse's amygdala and causes the host to like the scent. Here's an example of a finely tuned adaptation; rather than just disrupting the host's neural mechanisms for danger avoidance willy-nilly, the parasite interferes with a single mechanism most likely to result in a useful death.

Now, for a change of pace, how about a story wherein the host get the better of a parasite? Even better, how about global eradication of a painful human parasite? The New England Journal of Medicine reports that the days of the Guinea worm are numbered, thanks to two decades of work by the global Dracunculiasis (Guinea worm disease) Eradication Program. The report includes this graph demonstrating the annual number of cases of Guinea worm infection:

Guinea worm larvae are carried by microscopic water fleas (copepods). After a human drinks water containing infected copepods, the Guinea worm spends about a year maturing. Female worms then emerge from the skin and will expel the next generation of larvae upon making contact with water.

The incredible thing about the eradication effort is that it hasn't required any drugs or vaccines, just education about the parasite's life cycle. Drinking water is filtered to remove the larvae-bearing copepods. Water sources are monitored. Infected individuals are given assistance or incentive to submit to quarantine while the worms are emerging.

The program seems on track to eradicate the Guinea worm completely by its goal of 2009. This marks the first global eradication of a disease since smallpox, and the first ever eradication of a parasite without use of drugs or vaccines. Score one for science and health education!

the h bar

2007-06-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

happy hour drink anyone?

if this doesnt make sense, go here

I know what the "f" really stands for...

2007-06-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

Statistics joke ahead. You have been warned.

Q:How do you graph a linear function?
A: As a straight line—on Cartesian graph paper.
Q:How you you graph an exponential function?
A: As a straight line—on semi-log graph paper.
Q:How do you graph an arbitrary monotonic function f(x)?
A:As a straight line—on f paper!

Zeno told this joke as part of a criticism of people who use unusual axes on graphs of accurate data to mislead people. Examples of how "f paper" works can be found on his post.

The basic idea is that by altering the axes' scales while plotting the data points correctly (according to your scales), you can use the graph to exaggerate or obscure the effect the data measure.

When the human population data is graphed on linear scales, you see an exponential increase in humans in modern times. If you graph that same data on a vertical logarithmic scale, the number of humans seems to grow linearly. If you aren't paying attention to the scale, you could be hoodwinked or even bamboozled.

Of course, some people don't even bother with scales...

Polio: A Virus' Struggle

2007-06-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

One of the best (okay, most amusing) science sites around is The Science Creative Quarterly (RSS). They've just done a second (third?) repost of one of the classic pieces of science narratives, "Polio: A Virus' Struggle" by James Weldon.

science, it works bitches!

2007-06-13T22:30:00.001-07:00

speaking of cool t-shirts...

any good SUGAA reader would love the comic series xkcd! here's the fantastic t-shirt that i plan to buy as soon as i move back to the states and can have it shipped to me!

front:

back:

description from the website:

Science: We finally figured out that you could separate fact from superstition by a completely radical method: observation. You can try things, measure them, and see how they work! Bitches.

The graph on the back of the shirt is data from the COBE mission, which looked at the background microwave glow of the universe and found that it fit perfectly with the idea that the universe used to be really hot everywhere. This strongly reinforced the Big Bang theory and was one of the most dramatic examples of an experiment agreeing with a theory in history -- the data points fit perfectly, with error bars too small to draw on the graph. It's one of the most triumphant scientific results in history.

... and the two men that predicted and observed the blackbody nature and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation were awarded the 2006 nobel prize in physics! go science!

Evaporation

2007-06-13T20:17:00.000-07:00

Check out this cool t-shirt at Etsy! The graphic is an illustration of evaporation from an old Japanese text book. Alternatively, it could be taken as a representation of The Rapture. Something for everyone, I guess. You choose. A bargain at only $15 plus shipping! (This isn't mine, and I don't know the folks selling it. I just think it's really cool).

Mr. Wizard (1917-2007)

2007-06-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

The one and only Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert, passed away yesterday at the age of 89 and my geeky heart mourns. I watched "Mr. Wizard’s World" on Nickelodeon in the 80’s almost every morning before I went to school (yes, even in high school). My father was a big fan of the original show back in the 50’s. I wanted to BE Mr. Wizard. He’s a big reason I was involved in the Outreach program in graduate school and now do the annual Imagination Day event at a local school.
Visit Mr. Wizard Studios.

I think he deserves a posthumous SPIAS* designation.

*Someone Personally Implementing Awesome Science

The Inner Life of The Cell

2007-06-02T00:39:00.000-07:00

A short, set-to-music version of this video from Harvard University was doing the rounds about a year ago. Now, the full 8-minute video, with commentary.

Brain-Controlling Parasites

2007-06-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

I've found a bunch of awesome videos on YouTube demonstrating a fascinating aspect of nature: parasites that take over part of the host's brain, resulting in a kind of behavior that will further the parasite's life cycle.

First, a parasite, having outgrown its cricket host, convinces the cricket to drown itself. Thus, the parasite has a chance to swim away (sorry, no sound on this one):

It's amazing, the kind of stuff that evolution makes possible. If you're having trouble thinking of how something like this could evolve, think of it this way. (This is just a hypothetical, of course, and an over-simplified one at that, so forgive me. :-P) That parasitic worm's ancestor also needed to grow in a cricket and seek out water. Some crickets were bound to drown just by accident, so that was just fine: few of the parasites would make it from cricket to water, but enough would to continue the species. Now, imagine a random mutation that made some of that worm's offspring have the slightest effect on their hosts, so those hosts tended to be slightly more attracted to water. This small effect couldn't guarantee that the cricket would drown, but over a large population, a slightly greater proportion of these mutated worms would reach the water compared to the non-mutated ones. Thus, the mutants pass on their genes, and the water-seeking allele increases in frequency. Now, just repeat the process. More water-directing mutations stack upon the first, gradually increasing the effect until the parasite practically has total control over the water-seeking portion of the cricket's little brain.

Next (and my personal freak-out favorite), this poor snail has worms. I bet he's all the rage at the local discotheque, but I don't know that it would be worth it to have pulsating worms in your freaking brain:

And last but not least, mind-controlling fungi attack insects. The time-lapse growth of the fruiting body (~1:07 to 1:45) is particularly cool, as is the fungus-covered moth:

Speaking of fungi, I've got a post up at my blog Synapostasy talking about a recent study of melanin-containing fungi and radiation. Feel free to check it out! (There's also some stuff in that post about fish and limb development.)

carnival of space

2007-05-31T12:28:00.000-07:00

i'm really enjoying the carnival of space series... a weekly collection of blogs about anything and everything that has to do with... wait for it... space!! the 5th installment of the carnival of space is now up and running!

i contributed a post about heliocentrism and i really enjoyed the post from universe today about dark matter annihilation at the center of the milky way.

Geocentricism? Is that all?

2007-05-21T15:42:00.000-07:00

Astropixie, I noticed on a recent entry you were lamenting the continued existence of Geocentricism. Fear not, I have something to help you get over it:

The Flat Earth Society

From the FAQ:

Q: "Is this site for real?"

A: This site is real. There are people who seriously believe the Earth is flat. However, there are also people on this site who do not.

Q: "Why do you guys believe the Earth is flat?"

A: Well, it looks that way up close. Also, Samuel Rowbotham et al. performed a variety of experiments over a period of several years that show it must be flat. They are all explained in his book, which is linked at the top of this article.

Don't worry it gets better:

Q: "How did NASA create these images with the computer technology available at the time?"

A: Since NASA did not send rockets into space, they instead spent the money on developing advanced computers and imaging software instead

PLEASE NOTE This means that pictures confirming the roundness or flatness of the Earth DO NOT IN THEMSELVES CONSTITUTE VALID PROOF.

If 2000 year old dead bodies could spin in their graves, Eratosthenes's would be doing it about now.

Periodic Art

2007-05-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

A group of printmakers from around the world are collaborating to make a periodic table of elements with a different print for each element. I ran across the print for Californium while exploring flickr and of course had to check out the group that sprang up around it.

It's a beautiful thing when art and science meet.

is there other life in the universe?

2007-05-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

i believe life... in some form... exists somewhere in the universe other than just on earth. the universe is just too big for us to be the only life!! we developed on one planet, among ~~nine~~ eight planets that orbit around one star in the milky way galaxy which harbors ~400 BILLION other stars. the milky way is only one galaxy among the BILLIONS of galaxies in the universe, each containing BILLIONS of stars. any of those stars could have planets, but planets are really hard to find!

i'm certain life exists *somewhere* in that vast volume of space, but that's exactly the difficulty in finding life.... there are so many galaxies and stars so where do we look? what do we look for? since we live on a planet, we can easily deduce that the best place to look is on other planets! as of today, we've detected 233 planets outside of our solar system and its cool that we finally found an earth-like planet that exists in a region around a star with a temperature to support liquid water!

life on earth has existed for 5 billion years but the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. some life out there could have just began in the last billion years or less, or some planets could have harbored evolving life forms for twice as long as the earliest known life forms believed to be on earth! that raises interesting questions about what life on earth might look like in another 5 billion years (assuming life survives this destructive period in human existence)! consider that only 65 million years ago, dinosaurs dominated earth's surface!

communication with extraterrestrial lifeforms is a whole other issue. our chance of "communicating" with anything out there (in my opinion) will result from another civilization communicating with us. we've been sending off electromagnetic signals for, lets say, 100 years. the earliest signals are now 100 light years away from earth in all directions. within that sphere there are only ~30 stars. the new planet we just found is about 20 light years away... so it has received our earliest transmissions and has had ample time (over 20 years) to send a light signal back our way. We havent received any signals from this or any other planet accoring to the SETI Institute. our (unintentional) early electromagnetic signals have only reached a few dozen stars among the buhzillions that exist in the universe... and thats traveling at the speed of light!

so.... thats why i say our best chance for communication is from another life form having sent out a signal at some point in the past. let's say there's intelligent life on a planet on the other side of the milky way... about 40,000 light years away. if we receive a signal tomorrow from this distant planet, the signal will have been traveling from that planet for 40,000 years! we are ready with our return signal (of course!), which we send out immediately. that planet will start receiving our original signals in 39,900 years and then in 40,000 years, they will receive our response specific to their message. then it will take them 40,000 years to respond to us, etc....

another (more hopeful) option is that they will have detected our presence thru light detection or exploration of our ~~neck~~ arm of the milky way, in space vehicles that travel very very fast!!

my point is not to lose all hope of ever detecting another civilization... on the contrary, i think it is super exciting that we are detecting so many planets so rapidly right now!! my real point is that there *has* to be life out there somewhere is this unfathomably large universe of ours. probability says there should be life considering the volume and the fact that the chemistry that makes life possible on earth is extremely abundant throughout the universe. so let's keep looking and doing our best not to destroy our own successful and immensely special civilization while we are actively searching for those signals!!

kinetic sculpture

2007-04-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

where design and engineering overlap: meet theo jansen.

Where are the bees going?

2007-04-27T09:34:00.000-07:00

Apparently a quarter of the United States honeybee colonies have collapsed! For whatever reason, adult honeybees are not returning to their hives. Read about it at the NY Times.

Is it just me, or does this sound like the plot of a science fiction movie?

flatulence?

2007-03-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

theres a website updated daily, http://arxiv.org/ called "archive", where researchers in every branch of physics, mathematics, computer science and quantitative biology can post their newly published papers for all to see. i've been a bit back-logged so today i decided to sit down and catch up on the last two weeks of posts. the title of this one cracked me up because as i glanced over it, my mind substituted the word "flatulences" for "fluctuations." this in itself made me laugh, but it actually became more funny when i read the whole title again! hahaha!

Title: Air-shower simulations with and without thinning: artificial fluctuations and their suppression

Authors: D.S. Gorbunov, G.I. Rubtsov and S.V. Troitsky
Categories: astro-ph
Comments: 8 pages, revtex. The shower library is available at
http://livni.inr.ac.ru

The most common way to simplify extensive Monte-Carlo simulations of air showers is the use of the thinning approximation. We study its effect on the physical parameters reconstructed from simulated showers. To this end, we created a library of showers simulated without thinning with energies from 10^17 eV to 10^18 eV, different zenith angles and primaries. This library is publicly available. Various physically interesting applications of the showers simulated without thinning are discussed. Observables reconstructed from these showers are compared to those obtained with the thinning approximation. The amount of artificial fluctuations introduced by thinning is estimated. A simple method, multisampling, is suggested which results in a controllable suppression of artificial fluctuations and at the same time requires less demanding computational resources as compared to the usual thinning.
( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0703546 , 472kb)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What debunkers deal with

2007-03-29T01:26:00.000-07:00

This is a video short from the sketch comedy group Olde English. It parodies shows like "In Search of...". There are ads that play before and after the actual clip.

Mysteriousnesses

evolution: both sides now

2007-03-28T22:05:00.000-07:00

a while back i posted a ~7 minute video showing carl sagan's explanation of evolution on my own blog...

in order to not be one-sided, i thought i'd offer this little 2 minute video disputing the validity of evolution.

[colbert-ism]

chuck missler makes an obvious point with that peanut butter prop. i, for one, have been grateful everytime i've opend a jar of peanut butter and not found new life! if those silly evolutionists were correct, you'd think we would have been able to grow at least one form of new life in one of those peanut butter jars that we've produced, packed, bought and sold over the last ~100 years! the next thing those crazy scientists'll be telling us is that quantum mechanics is real! ha! QM says there's a probability that if i sit on my couch long enough* (surrounded by the comfortable lighting of my living room writing blog after blog after blog on my new laptop), i will eventually fall through the couch! well, that would be pretty darned inconvenient now wouldn't it, scientists! sheesh! there are over 7 billion people on the earth... why havent we heard a single report about anyone falling through their couch!?!

[/colbert-ism]

* QM predicts i'd have to sit there many times longer than the age of the universe since the big bang++

++ if you belive in that sort of thing.

Phenology

2007-03-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

As a fan of gardening and tromps through the woods, I was excited yesterday to learn the word phenology. What is phenology? First off, it isn't the study of head bumps as they affect personality (my that's a rather criminalistic skull ridge you've got there, buddy!). That's phRenology. Phenology... well, here's a website that gives a nice definition:

"Phenology is the study of the times of recurring natural phenomena especially
in relation to climate. It is recording when you heard the first cuckoo or
saw the blackthron blossom. This can then be compared with other records."

These days, phenology seems a bit tied up in the work of demonstrating that global warming is occurring. By comparing historic bloom times of certain plants over centuries, a trend is often visible. But the part that I think is so cool is that phenology allows 1) prediction of bloom times (Lilacs begin to bloom after about and 275 degree days, with a base temp of 33 deg F) and 2)coordination of agricultural insect control.

The UW Extension has this cool Phenology page which lists the degree days required for first bloom of certain plants, and first appearance of certain ornamental and vegetable pests. (Ornamental pests... I think I dated one or two of those in my younger days). So if you know your plant of interest is susceptible to a certain pests (say ash borers, with a larval stage at 275 degree days) and that dandelions start going to seed at around 275 degree days, you can wait to treat for ash borers until the first dandelions start going to seed (and the lilacs begin blooming). It's like a perfect blend of Old Farmer's Almanac folk wisdom and science!

PS: Degree days are like man-hours. If the set point is 50 deg F, and the outdoor temp is 52 degrees for 3 days, you've accumulated 6 degree days. And that's the problem with the UW page... no explanation of a set point. harumph.

An Astronomer is I!

2007-03-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

journey to a black hole

2007-03-18T00:26:00.000-07:00

ever wonder what it would be like to journey near a black hole?? what does the approach to a point of infinite density and infinite gravity feel like?

here is a very cool interactive site with loads of great graphics...
Black Holes: gravity's relentless pull.

enjoy the journey!!

A Mission!

2007-03-15T05:34:00.000-07:00

I have just received a message from a gentleman who needs our help! It seems that a certain individual who goes by the name of Nemo has been wondering (as he is wont to do) what would happen if an extraorinarily strong container full of water were dramatically chilled. Would it freeze?

Let's assume that container is made of a material and of a construction which is sufficiently strong not to deform or burst from internal pressure. Let's further assume that the container is filled to the very top, and that the water is at a 4 deg. Therefore, any further chilling of the water from this point would result in expansion. Clearly, the water will not be able to completely tranform into regular ice. A given mass of regular ice just won't fit into a container with a volume exactly sufficient for the same mass of 4 deg C water. So what will it do? Will it form some exotic type of amorphous ice? some strange crystalline form? Perhaps Ice-9?

This article almost touches on the topic. And it's got the most amazing water phase diagram I've ever seen (see above)... but it didn't help me figure it out. I'm more confused than ever. Any thoughts?

More pi day fun!

2007-03-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

Mike Keith has taken pi day to a new level. Back in 1995, he composed a poetic retelling of Poe's The Raven wherein each word contains a number of letters corresponding to that digit of pi. If you don't know what I'm talking about (which, given my convoluted description, is entirely possible.. nay, likely), check out this excerpt from the beginning of the poem:

Poe, E. Near a Raven
Midnights so dreary, tired and weary.
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".

Poe=3, E=1, Near=4... and so on for 740 words. Definitely awesome!

Happy Pi Day

2007-03-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

Scientists Break Speed of Light

2007-03-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

Scientists have finally exceeded the speed of light, causing a light pulse to travel hundreds of times faster than normal.

It raced so fast the pulse exited a specially-prepared chamber before it even finished entering it.

The experiment is the first-ever evidence of faster-than-light motion.

[LINK to CBC Story]

last days on earth

2007-03-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

hola! as a first post, i thought i'd share this interesting video that i recently came across. leading scientists discuss seven scenarios detailing the major threats to humanity. very cool graphics! it was a 20/20 show that lasts 1:22:22.

SUGAA and SPIAS

2007-03-08T05:34:00.000-08:00

A month or so ago (before the founding of SUGAA), I posted on my own blog about "Made With Molecules" which has some awesome molecular jewelry. Well, yesterday I got my "creativity necklace" (acetylcholine, dopamine and serotonin). It's even more awesome in person! I can feel the creativity flowing already. I nominate the artist, Raven Hanna, as a SPIAS (Someone Personally Implementing Awesome Science) I may have to get some matching earrings next!

UPDATE: You can find an article about Raven in C&ENews here.

Fun with liquid nitrogen

2007-03-01T08:21:00.000-08:00

Got liquid nitrogen left over from making delicious ice cream? (An awesome use on its own.) Throw it into a swimming pool!

I'm jealous I've never done this myself. The best I managed was dumping left over LN2 outside in -20F weather. A nice, lingering cloud. Alas, this was way too many years ago and no evidence exists.

Spear-wielding chimps - New Scientist

2007-02-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

This story from New Scientist blows my mind. It seems that a group of chimps in Senegal has been repeatedly observed sharpening 2-foot long sticks with their teeth, and then using the sticks to stab bush babies in their dens . The bush babies are then eaten. According to the article, it's the first human-observed instance of a non-human animal using a tool to kill a vertebrate. The article attributes this unusual behavior to the absence of a monkey species used by chimps as a meat source in most chimp-inhabited areas. They've used tools to adapt themselves to an environment outside that where they'd normally live. Sound familiar. Seems like the only thing that humans do, but other animals don't is... blog.

PS: The link contains links to a page with links to three videos. Unfortunately, I can't make out much more than a chimp jumping around a tree, and eating some sort of critter. I find it unpleasant and uninformative. YMMV.

Classic Sagan Quotation

2007-02-21T07:28:00.000-08:00

Not really dirty (maybe dusty) or news, but a great thought from a great thinker.

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Reflections on a Mote of Dust

Now THAT is Security!

2007-02-20T13:25:00.000-08:00

After a day of doing un-awesome science, I came across this little item on geekologie. Tell me you don't want one for your car!

Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique

2007-02-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

Calling all Awesome Scientists, start decorating your lab coats with these badges, and proudly display your scientific achievements.

Pictured here is the "destroyer of quackery" badge.
"In which the recipient never ever backs down from an argument that pits sound science over quackery."

Check them out at their website and start awarding your fellow scientists!

Protein Synthesis Hippis

2007-02-17T17:23:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have seen this in class at some point. I saw it for the first time last night.

This is a dancing representation of protein synthesis performed by the department of Chemistry at Stanford in 1971.

Enjoy.

bubu

Bright Lights, Big Squiddy

2007-02-13T17:33:00.000-08:00

The New Scientist reports today on new video footage of a large deep-sea squid. And holy crap on Mom's shoes, these are some awesome video clips. Who would have thought a squid could move like that?

What's really fantastic about this squid are the lights at the ends of its tentacles. As the article says, it's possible that the squid could be using the lights for communication. This reminds me of a Discover magazine article discussing the morphing ability of octopuses and their potential for visual communication.

Intelligence + tentacles + morphing ability = Cephalopods are awesome.

While I'm disclosing my love affair with cephalopods: consider the Australian cuttlefish. Scrawny males will disguise themselves as females to sneak into the bigger males' harems. Shakespeare would have had a fit if he had known about these guys.

There's nothing like spending a little time thinking about cephalopods to give you a whole new perspective of... well, I don't know what, but a new perspective of something.

--Aaron--

Joining the Ranks

2007-02-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

Zdravstvuytye! I reckon it's my turn to introduce myself. I'm current wrapping up a B.A. in Cell Biology at Dartmouth College, with a minor in Physics for good measure. I have a particular soft spot for neurobiology and evolutionary biology, but my real passion is for popularization of science. I've spent a great deal of time devoted to performance arts, and would love to translate those skills to science instruction. I could ask for no greater calling than the advancement of awesome science.

--Aaron--

Shooting Blanks at Shadows

2007-02-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

This is an letter I wrote for my local newspaper. Hope you guys like it.

This is an open letter to antievolutionists.

If you wish for the scientific community and other supporters of biological evolution to take you seriously, you will have to do two things.

First of all, stop lying about the details of evolution. Anyone with Internet access can visit the TalkOrigins Archive (http://talkorigins.org/) and see for themselves what claims are made by evolution and what claims are straw men set up by opponents of the theory. If all you do is knock down myths about evolution rather than actual claims, you might as well be shooting blanks at shadows. Please stop saying the tired, old lies like “evolution says that fish give birth to dogs” or “evolution says your grandpa was a monkey” or “evolution is totally random”. Evolution makes none of those claims. Saying it does is dishonest.

Second of all, start providing some actual physical evidence in support of your claim instead of the word play and illogical arguments you usually use. Evolution is supported by multiple, independent ways of calculating the age of the Earth, multiple fossilized organisms (including several pre-human ancestors), modern genetic evidence and even some direct observations of speciation. Antievolutionism is supported by a public relations and marketing strategy of appealing to authority and to ignorance. If you really wanted to throw evolution for a loop, you’d find a winged horse, a griffon or some other biologically-impossible mythical creature. That’s all it would take, one piece of evidence.

Antievolutionists, the ball is in your court now. Stop lying and show me a pegasus.

Using anti-bacterial soaps and detergents? Mass Murderer!

2007-02-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

Researchers from NYU School of Medicine have recently found that the 'average' person's skin is populated by at least 182 different species of bacteria. And that's just on the forearm.

Using new molecular DNA techniques, the researchers found that the skin was much more diverse than previously thought, with about 8% of the species found being new discoveries.

Read more.

Dark Side

2007-02-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

An article by Phil Plait for Seed Magazine tells the story of how scientists have learned how to "see" dark matter.

After decades of attempts, astronomers have unveiled the dark side of the Universe.

I have to wonder if they finally resorted to alcohol in their "unveiling" attempts.

Dark matter was first thought of in the 1930's.

As time went on, more and more data suggested that the bulk of the Universe is invisible. Astronomers weren't thrilled with this (who wants to be told you can't see the majority of what you're trying to study?), but the evidence kept mounting. Galaxies rotated too quickly, implying that they had extra matter surrounding them in halos that were totally invisible. X-ray images revealed galaxies that were submerged in vast pools of million-degree gas, which should quickly dissipate unless the gravity from some unseen matter held it in place.

To simulate, get on a crowded bus of people who are leaving a bean and chili festival.

To see the dark matter, scientists decided to measure its only known effect: gravity. By measuring the distortion due to gravity of objects in space and comparing them with the expected distortion, astronomers were able to map out a 3-D view of dark matter. Since the far away dark matter is also being seen as it used to be, the map gives a view into the universe's past.

In the past, dark matter formed huge structures spanning hundreds of millions of light years across. But in more recent history, these enormous blobs have broken into smaller, scattered clumps.

Which indicates that the universe needs to eat more fiber.

For more details about this story, click on the link above.

Atmosphere

2007-02-02T20:45:00.000-08:00

That space voyeur we call Hubble was, in 2003, peeking at an extrasolar "Hot Jupiter". Hot Jupiters are gas giants that orbit very closely to their stars. Because they are so close, they revolve around the stars fairly quickly. The larger size and frequency of revolutions makes these planets easier to detect from Earth. Most of the extrasolar planets we know about are Hot Jupiters.

The analysis of the 2003 observations indicates that the atmosphere of one Hot Jupiter is in fact being "melted off" by it's proximity to the star. The atmosphere trails behind the orbiting planet like a comet giving it... a bit of tail.

Horse Testing

2007-02-02T14:24:00.000-08:00

The story of Clever Hans illustrates how wonderfully useful the scientific method is. Hans was the horse who could "answer" math problems with hoofbeats.

Germany's board of education asked to conduct an independent investigation into Hans' abilities, and Von Osten agreed. He was a man of science, after all, and he knew that there was no fraud to expose. The board members assembled a number of scientific minds to join the Hans Commission, including two zoologists, a psychologist, a horse trainer, several school teachers, and a circus manager. Following extensive independent testing, the commission concluded in 1904 that there was no trickery involved in Hans' responses; as far as they could tell, the horse's talents were genuine.

The Hans Commission then passed the investigation on to Oskar Pfungst, a psychologist with some novel ideas on how to best unravel the mystery. Pfungst erected a large tent to house his experiments, thereby removing the contaminating effects of outside visual stimuli. In order to produce a sufficient data set, the scientist compiled a very large list of questions, and carefully outlined the different variables that were to be considered. Thus Pfungst began his interrogation of Hans.

Click the link to read the rest of the story. I liked how the conclusion of the experiments, while not the answer people wanted, added something to our body of knowledge. That's what science is all about.

Ecologically Approved

2007-02-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

Engineers in Northern Wales wielded the Power of Physics and the Power of Chemistry to create a new salt mixture for deicing their roads. They added molasses to the salt so the salt would stick to the roads and not to cars, improving traction and limiting corrosion. However, in creating this safe-for-cars road salt, they forgot to wield the Power of Biology.

They forgot about the sheep.

my line

2007-01-31T19:25:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a PhD in biology. Ive spent some time in biochmiestry as well so the two have somewhat blurred. My current area of research is avian endocrinology. Perhaps someday if I'm awesome enough I'll work my way up to duckies.

What's your line?

2007-01-31T19:02:00.000-08:00

So I assume that most of us either reading or contributing are scientists of some flavor. I'm curious about what kinds of science we're all into.

I'm an amateur generalist with some affection for mathematics, astronomy and evolutionary biology. I'm interested in all kinds of science, though those three areas are where I usually spend the most brain power. How about you?

Some awesome videos

2007-01-30T15:17:00.000-08:00

Rubens Tube

Electric Powered Projectiles

Liquid Nitrogen Teacher

The Skeptic's Reading List

2007-01-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

The Scientific Method, as I see it, can be divided into two parts, imagination and skepticism. You use imagination to develop new ideas and apply skepticism to test the merits of the ideas. These twin engines of creativity and testing have powered scientific and technological breakthroughs throughout history.

If you want to know more about skepticism, here are some books I recommend.

The unofficial "bible" of skepticism, and one of the greatest books I have ever read, is The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. Sagan not only goes over the basics of critical thinking, but also describes why critical thinking is important. The chapter called "The Dragon in my Garage" is one of the most well-known refutations of "goalpost-moving" tactics like the Omphalos argument. Briefly, if there is no difference between an incorporeal dragon and no dragon at all, why should we accept the existence of the dragon?

While Sagan's work covers why we should be thinking critically, Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things, explains why people often don't think critically. One of the biggest reasons is that human brains seem to be wired for "pattern-seeking" and not wired for testing those patterns they find (confirmation bias). Shermer explains how people come to believe different things and why they continue to believe those things even after proven false.

Next up is a personal favorite, though it isn't as mentioned as much in other places. John Allen Paulos's Innumeracy examines the perils of being a math-illiterate society and individual. While the average person knows a little algebra, their grasp of probability and coincidences is often weak. Con-artists, pseudoscientists and advocates of various causes all use bad math, intentionally or accidentally, to promote their products or philosophies. If your understanding of mathematics is good enough, you can often see through the falsehoods.

For specific applications of critical thinking, I recommend Lynne Kelly's The Skeptic's Guide to the Paranormal. Kelly covers most of the basic paranormal and unusual claims by going over the various arguments for a claim and the skeptical refutations. There are a lot of interesting science tidbits used to dispel several of these claims, you'll probably learn something new as well.

Finally, if you want to see critical thinking applied to the myths and misconceptions that hang around the sciences, you can't go wrong with Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy. In it, Phil debunks moon landing hoaxes, face on Mars claims, global destruction at the hand of giant astroids and standing eggs up on the equinox. You should, if you aren't already, also check out his Bad Astronomy Blog.

So if you haven't read those yet, you've got a lot of pages ahead of you. Happy reading!

A brief intro

2007-01-30T11:31:00.000-08:00

For my first(!) post here, I'd like to give you a brief overview of who I am. Unlike most of the people likely reading this, I am not a professional scientist or in training to be a professional scientist. The same with mathematics, history and what have you. The only thing I get paid for is fixing computers and writing up technology policies. In all other fields, I am an amateur.

Most of what I know is self-taught and what I don't know, I want to learn. My posts here are likely going to be related to skepticism, math and the history of science. I'll try not to be "ranty", unless I am asked to. If you have questions related to any thing I write about, please email me at address:jokermage domain:gmail.com.

I am glad to be part of the knowledge exchange that is SUGAA and hope I am able to share with you all something awesome.

Theodore Gray

2007-01-29T09:16:00.000-08:00

jokermage wrote:

Theodore Gray should be one of our patron saints. The Periodic Table Table alone qualifies him.

That is a way awesome table! Click through to the site where you can see that each of the element squares is actually the lid for a repository of the element in question. His website is amazing, and his Sodium Party page contains some of the most fascinating sodium metal and water video I've ever seen! (don't try this at home, kids). I nominate Theodore Gray as an honorary member of'SUGAA! (More from jokermage's comments in coming days).

Just so wrong...

2007-01-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

There are so many things wrong with this experiment. I'm assuming he is performing the "Methanol Torch" , where you fill a bottle of that shape with methanol vapor, bring a lit match to the top of the bottle and, after a quick flare, the flame flutter as it uses up the fuel in the neck and then pulls more from the body.

A glass bottle, we used old water cooler jugs.
He put whatever it was he was using to light it so far down the neck that the force of that initial burst was more focused into the bottle instead of upward (this is just assumption).
No safety glasses/goggles in evidence.
The full bottle of solvent (I'm assuming it was the methanol) really close to the firey experiment.
Letting the flame just burn after the explosion.
That godawful labcoat.

Any others you see?

Awesome Scientists!

2007-01-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

Scientist Trading Cards from AllTooFlat! This has been up for years, but they're pure sciency awesomness. Like baseball cards, except featuring the most awesome scientists of all times. They've even got my favorite scientist: Richard Feynman! When you view them online you can see the "back of the card", too, which features their stats and a brief bio. For instance, Feynman's reads:

Name: Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
Writes: Righ
Dominant Cortex: Left
University: Princeton
Key Contributions: "Feynman returned his attention quantum electrodynamics and successfully developed the rules that all quantum field theories must obey. In the process, he discovered how to renormalize the theory of quantum electrodynamics and also invented a nice way of representing quantum interactions, now called Feynman diagrams. For all these contributions, especially to the renormalization of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in physics with Shin-Ichiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger, each of whom also contributed to the renormalization of the theory. Feynman also contributed to the theory of nuclear interactions with Murray Gell-Mann."

A few cafe press items are available on the site but, sadly, the cards themselves aren't available for sale. I'd guess it's because the cards are based on actual historic baseball cards. Somebody (somebody talented - not me) should do a set of cards for internet celebrities. I must admit, though, I don't know how you'd summarize ze in such a tiny space!

Beer Science

2007-01-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

This weekend, I anadvertently performed an experiment with bottled beer. I happen to have a large surplus of bottled beer at the moment. While I'm bravely making headway, some of the beer has been forced to sit out on top of the refrigerator. Thus, it has been exposed to temperatures below the freezing point of water. Most of the beers were unaffected by the chill temperatures. Strangely, though, bottles of Miller Genuine Draft were half frozen, while bottles of MGD Light in the same six-pack holder were unaffected. What gives?

Everything I can think of about Light beer should indicate that it freezes at a higher temperature than regular beer. Regular beer has more alcohol, more carbohydrates, and so on. Yet, the MDG froze first. Anyone have any theories?

Fire in the hole!

2007-01-19T10:29:00.000-08:00

Many moons ago, when I was a young chemistry graduate student, I participated in an Outreach program that had university students (grad and undergrad) visiting local schools and performing chemistry demonstrations. Many of the experiments were of the explosive variety to elicit “oohs” and “ahhs” from the audience.

Typically, there were two or three of us doing the demos, as going it alone was frowned upon, but sometimes I would have perform solo, especially when the undergrads had gone home for the summer but the local schools were still in session. One such time was for a class of sixth graders at a local middle school.

I was performing one of our more popular experiments, the hydrogen balloon. We’d have two balloons, one filled with helium the other with hydrogen. Attaching a match to the end of a long metal stick, first we’d put the lit match to the helium balloon. It would pop, but nothing else. Next, we’d turn out the lights and give the hydrogen the same treatment, resulting in a pretty spectacular fireball (well for indoors at any rate), and the kids would clap and shout. My shtick was to have the kids say “Oh the humanity!” as I put the match to the balloon (then explain a bit about the Hindenburg disaster). Usually, I got a few laughs and the kids loved the explosion, but this time things didn’t go quite the way I planned.

I got through the helium balloon part just fine, but when I went to light the hydrogen balloon, there was a small pin-hole that caused the balloon to shoot a jet of flame instead of exploding in a fireball. Immediately, I pulled the stick away, but unbeknownst to me, the jet action had wrapped the balloon’s string around the stick. Instead of moving away from the balloon, I was actually pulling it toward me. Thankfully, I was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt so the flames just singed the hair off my forearm and were extinguished quickly. After the flames were out, I heard the class cheering wildly and chants of “Do it again!”

Years later, when asked to participate in a stunt which called for me to be purposely set on fire by some fire-eating friends, this little event allowed me to truthfully reply, “That’s alright, I’ve been on fire in front of an audience before”.

(image via wikipedia)

Ooblek at Family Functions

2007-01-18T09:17:00.000-08:00

I did Ooblek on a smaller scale than the video that Viola posted below. Just a cup or two of it (recipe below) in a tupperware container. It was a big hit with the daughter and nephews on Christmas day. I gathered them around the sink and rolled small balls of ooblek to put in their hands. At my direction, they kept it rolling between their palms for a few seconds then stopped. As the balls melted into piles of goo, their eyes went wide, and smiles played across their faces. Sure, electric keyboards were fun, but so were 20 cents worth of cornstarch and water. It blew their young (3-8 year old) minds just a tiny bit. Watching the video (below) after they'd played with it blew their minds a tiny bit more. Never again will they draw a firm line between solid stuff and liquid stuff. At any minute anything in the room - the TV, their shoes, their dog - might melt into a pile of goo. And if blowing a kid's mind isn't awesome, what is?

Recipe for Standard Oobleck from DCTech.com:

Oobleck is not a precise recipe - it is basically a thick solution of water and corn starch - with food coloring to suite yourself. Put together roughly equal amounts of each. If you can stir it, add more corn starch. The thicker the solution the harder it will become to stir the solution together. You may have to leave it to soak together. Pick it up in the spoon and you'll have chunks, but as the tension releases you'll see them go back to liquid.

Oooblick gone MAD!

2007-01-16T13:50:00.000-08:00

I'd like to start out with a little bit of science demo Awesomeness. Taking the cornstarch and water experiment to extremes!

Welcome to SUGAA Headquarters!

2007-01-16T11:47:00.000-08:00

This blog is the current headquarters for:
Scientists United for the Global Advancement of Awesomeness
(a.k.a. SUGAA) (a.k.a. the 'Scientists for Awesomeness' pack from zefrank's TheOrg). All members of the pack are welcome as authors. And all members of TheOrg who have minds of a scientific bent (or scientifically-bent minds) are welcome to join the pack. Let me know if you'd like posting rights, and I'll do what needs to be done. Or if you'd rather, post your input as comments, and I'll elevate it to post level as appropriate.

So... we've been confronted with the question: what will SUGAA do to advance global Awesomeness? Well, it'll do whatever we want it to do! Know of some Awesome Science? This is the place to spread the word. Have you come across a bit of Dirty Space News? Shoot it this way! Found a bitchin' little science demo and want to share the word? This is the place! For all of your Awesome Science related needs, SUGAA HQ is the place. I'll post now and again. Think there should be more posts? Send them our way!