Fringe, Festival and Science in South Australia

// March 4th, 2010 // No Comments » // Just for Fun, Science Communication

For all me hometown South Australian readers out there, this be for you. It’s the best time of year to be in the southern state because the Fringe and the Adelaide Festival are both on at the same time and there is SO MUCH AWESOME about that, really, you’re spoilt for choice. Of course for the rest of the year there’s sweet F.A. to do in S.A.

The RiAus are hosting a most excellent event to celebrate. It’s quite bluntly called Pre-Coital, the Science of Dating. It has an even blunter, but very cute, picture. Truly a noble use of photoshop.

There’ll be music, comedy and science demonstrations. Honestly, what more could you want in a show? I can’t think of a single thing that’s missing, except perhaps a big-ass explosion, some fire and a treasure chest.

It’s on from Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 March. You can buy tix for $15 for adults. If you see it, PLEASE tell me all about it! I’d love to see it, but I’m in the wrong stupid state that weekend.

If you know of any other science events happening for the Fringe and Festival, post a comment.

Equation tells you when to pop the question

// March 1st, 2010 // 13 Comments » // Just for Fun, Recent Research

Okay, so this is just cool. Statisticians from the University of New South Wales have made an equation that tells you the optimum age to propose.

It isn’t the first time people have made love equations…

The difference is this one actually comes up with some answers and uses numbers. In fact it’s pretty complicated. Luckily it’s also incredibly simple to use. Here’s how.

Take the minimum age you’d want to get married and call it p (for me, 21)
Take the maximum age you’d want to get married and call it n (for me, 30. Ideally.)
Subtract p from n (30 – 21) and times by *the magic number* 0.368. I got 3.312.
Add that to your starting age and you’ve got your optimum age.

That means to optimise your chances of bagging a good one, you should NOT propose to anyone before your optimum age. After that age, you should propose to the person who is better than anyone you’ve seen yet. There’s a 37% chance that person will be the best.

For me that’s 24 and 4 months. Oh god. That’s my age right now.

Granted, they made the equation mostly for funzies. So I’m not going to start freaking out and taking the initiative or anything. Still, funzies it definitely is. On the other hand if you’re looking for something lower brow then try this on. Cheesy!

A pdf of the press release and equation is here, along with the tricky maths stuff. This method is called “optimal stopping” is also used in the secretary problem, which is a method you can use to find the best applicant for a job.

Disclaimers to my loved ones who regularly read: SexyMan, this isn’t a hint! Mum, no, there’s nothing I’m not telling you.

The government has our DNA

// February 26th, 2010 // 4 Comments » // Uncategorized

DNA from newborn babies is being routinely screened for genetic testing, and in some cases the sample is kept indefinitely.

Last December a Dublin hospital was found keeping a DNA database in secret and is now under investigation. In the USA and Australia they don’t need to do it in secret, they have government support. Hell, it’s legislation.

Between two and three days after birth, blood is collected from a heel prick and sent for analysis for several genetic diseases, including cystic fibrosis. In Australia, you can say “No” to testing, but it is strongly recommended. I don’t really have a problem with testing, it could potentially identify serious diseases early and let you start treatment early. It’s what they do later that bugs me.

In Australia the blood is kept on a screening card indefinitely in a secure facility. Some groups are allowed to access them, the most alarming of which are the police “when no other sample is available” and ethics-approved health research.

Several Victorian hospitals are researching a written informed consent project to improve parent’s understanding of the screening process. It’s a great idea. Honestly, I can’t believe this was not required from the beginning. People CAN opt out of testing, or can have the screening card returned to them after two years… but how many KNOW that they can do that?

In America the rules change between states as to how long the records are kept, and here’s a list for 2010. In California, Michigan, and Minnesota they are kept indefinitely, as is the case in Florida where it recently became the subject of a CNN report.

For me it brings back my pirate paranoia built upon the wreck of so many X-Files episodes and a dim (but now flaring) belief that the government harvested everyone’s DNA when giving the worldwide smallpox vaccine, and have been documenting newborn DNA ever since. But that’s me. Hopefully it’s not that bad. Yet.

American blog Southern Fried Science also covered the story, and did a really interesting post on why a DNA database is a very bad idea. Makes you think.

I’m blown away by it, what are your thoughts? Are you concerned or do you think I’m being a bit paranoid? Is there something we can do? Is the time for activism nigh?

Onions make even the toughest pirate cry

// February 23rd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // How Things Work

Life in Canberra is full of ch-ch-changes. I’m living with a new shipmate who I hardly know, and we are still in the awkward social stage of being cautiously polite. Both of us are being abnormally clean, and amidst many mugs of grog we promise not to murder each other in their sleep.

In a gesture of good will, I found myself offering to make dinner for the both of us. On the menu was gnocchi with home-made pasta sauce, made of non-specific quantities (‘cos that’s how I roll) of tomato, basil, garlic and onion. And here we arrive at the topic for today.

Onions… Not much makes me cry, tough, seasoned pirate that I am, but onions do it for me. It can be slightly embarrassing to dab at your soggy eye-patch in the kitchen, but sometimes crying feels good. I’m sure it’s just that it removes excess salt from this salty seadog or some such. Certainly it has nothing to do with certain forbidden emotions, oh no! YARR!!! ‘Tis the onions and that be truth!

Things that make you cry are called lachrymators, named after lacrius, the Latin word for tears. I swear there was a greek god of despair called Lachrymus, but I may have made that up seeing as I can’t find a reference for it.

When you slice into an onion you split open onion cells, and they release all the goop they have inside them into the air, you can see it spray up if you look closely – which I don’t recommend as it will be ouchy. There are two families of molecules in the goop that are mainly involved in making your eyes pee. The first is amino acid sulfoxides, and the second is allinases which break them down, making (eventually) syn-propanethial-S-oxide the lachrymatory factor. The molecule is more irritating to your eyes than landlubbers in a complainin’ mood. Your tears are an effort to flush out the irritant, if only it were so easy with the landlubbers.

Recent research in New Zealand has focused on switching off one of the genes involved in the irritant-producing process, in effect making a No-Tears Onion. We’re still a good 10 years from being able to roll down to the supermarket to pick one up, but perhaps in the future the tears of the crying-food will be no more.

For now, there’s loads of advice about how to avoid onion tears, and some (such as chewing gum) sound pretty ridiculous. More effective but equally ridiculous is wearing onion goggles, a diving mask, or a spacesuit. Screw that. Take the chance to get it all out, and remember, if onions could cut up people they’d cry too.

Meet telomerase, the enzyme that won a Nobel Prize

// February 18th, 2010 // 11 Comments » // Recent Research

As a pirate I am rarely afforded the luxury of meeting the rich and famous, but today I met Elizabeth Blackburn. She was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, making her the first first FEMALE Australian born scientist to win a Nobel Prize. (I also met the PM and Senator Kim Carr, just to round out my VIP day.)

Sadly the story didn’t make the news on TV… further evidence that science just doesn’t rate to the media.

Well, it rates to ME. So I’m dedicating this post to the research that nabbed the Nobel Prize, the discovery of telomerase, builder of telomeres, protector of chromosomes.

WTF is a telomere? Inside your cell you have 46 chromosomes, long strands of DNA that have ends. Chromosomes have telomeres for the same reason we shipfolk dip the ends of rope in wax – so the ends don’t fray. Instead of wax, we have the same sequence of DNA bases (TTAGGG) that repeat over and over and wrap around some special proteins to make a nice neat little end.

When it comes to that special time in a cells life when the mommy cell loves itself very much, it needs to make a copy of all its DNA so it can split into two new cells. Because of how the machinery works it needs some DNA at to hold onto before it can start copying, which means some DNA at each end is lost every time the cell splits. That’s another good reason to have telomeres, you can lose a bit of them each time and it doesn’t hurt your genes.

However you’ve only got a certain amount of telomeres, and once they run out two things can happen. One: the cell stops dividing. Two: Something bad.

Something bad is that the cell, keeps dividing and starts cutting into the rest of its DNA. Suddenly you have lose ends of DNA whipping around the cell like untied ropes in a storm. The cell freaks out and thinks “eep, my DNA strand has been cut! Must sew it back together!” and then attaches one end to another end, probably to another chromosome altogether. That’s actually okay, until it comes time to divide again. The chromosomes need to separate so they can go into the daughter cells, and oh noes they are attached to each other! Solution? Rip them apart, then sew two bits back together… somewhere… Oh dear…

Soon you have DNA that has been stitched together a bit like Frankenstein’s monster. Most of the cells will die (for obvious reasons), but some will survive, will become stronger, better, faster than before, will become the cancer.

So telomeres protect your cells, but usually run out over the life of the cell. Fortunately there’s an enzyme that makes more of those TTAGGG repeats, so you have more telomeres! That’s what Elizabeth Blackburn helped discover – the superdooper trooper enzyme TELOMERASE.

Most of your cells don’t make telomerase, but stem cells do – that’s why they can survive for your whole life. Having an active version of telomerase can help protect against that split/stitch cycle and prevent cancer forming… mice often have more telomerase in their cells, and longer telomeres – as a result they get different kinds of cancers to us.

Pretty nifty enzyme, hey. Don’t know why the media wouldn’t be interested in that… you know, protects against cancer, important part of stem cells… no, don’t put THAT on the news. Let’s have some hardcore sport and a weather feature or two. GORDAMMIT!!!

When fish started to breathe air

// February 12th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Recent Research

The Devonian Period was a golden age for life in the ocean, in fact it’s called the Age of Fishes. First the jawless fish evolved but soon swimming around in a fishy way seemed pretty sweet and everyone was doing it. Fish with jaws emerged and were hardcore with the eating of other fish, then ancient sharks hit the scene.

As life underwater was taking off, plants began to move to the land, perhaps they were sick of being lunch for fish. Green ferns were among the first to stake their leafy claim, but shortly after insects followed, and plants were right back to being lunch again.

There was lots of life, lots of diversity, lots of new things and lots of feasting to be had. But the party had to end eventually, and indeed the last 20 million years of the Devonian were part of a long, drawn out mass extinction.

The extinction at the end of the Devonian was massive, it’s in the “five major extinction events” along with our favourite dinosaur-ending Cretaceous episode. Nearly 70% of all invertebrates would never be seen again, and the marine world was the worst hit.

Why did this massive extinction happen?

Your guess is as good as mine, but there are theories about. One is that the plants stripped the carbon dioxide from the air, causing global cooling. Maybe an asteroid is to blame, which I blame the dinosaur extinction on myself. Or maybe they all got fish flu.

There’s some evidence in rocks which date back to that time that the waters were very low in oxygen at the time of the extinction, so perhaps that was involved. It’s probably a mixture of events that by themselves would have been okay, but add them together and not much can survive. Excluding this familiar character which has done a damn good job of surviving.

It was at the end of the Devonian that the lungfish evolved and made it’s way onto land, beginning an air-breathing trend that I am proud to continue.

Up until now people believed the lungfish grew up in freshwater, because there’s still some freshwater lungfish around today. Looks like the textbooks will have to be rewritten now, because of this little guy.

Introducing a brand-new discovered-in-2008 lungfish Rhinodipterus that lived in SALTwater! Why does this matter? Well, it suggests that the ability to breathe air happened twice in the Devonian, once in freshwater and once in saltwater. The researchers suggest that one of these fish went on to evolve into other animals, while the other stayed back and remained a lungfish.

Their report will be published in this weeks edition of Biology Letters, which I’m sure all my readers will be DYING to read. But next time someone says “we evolved from lungfish” you can counter with “freshwater or salt?”

If you’d like to read more and don’t want to tackle the journal article, here’s the press release from the Australian National University. Hey, I study there. Maybe I should get an interview…

Australian Science Communicators Conference Day One

// February 9th, 2010 // 6 Comments » // Science Communication

Just got home after a massive day at #asc2010. Though I’m exhausted I’m feeling too excited to sleep, so instead I’ll give you my blow by blow account of the conference.

Welcome session
The day opened with a welcome from an Aboriginal elder who was not at all interested in science (actually, she said she hated it in school), but was nonetheless entertaining and welcoming. Later the minister did the “official” opening of the conference and also unveiled a new report on science communication policy called Inspiring Australia, which is in my bag to be tackled in all the free time I have. After opening the conference, he left, which was a shame. Guess he’s a busy man.

Plenary session #1
What is a plenary anyway? This was a panel discussion on the challenges for science communication with speakers from some major organisations, the NHMRC (National Health Medical Research Centre), the ARC (Australian Research Centre) and CSIRO. On the whole, it was great to hear from directors and managers from those kind of organisations, but a lot of it was beyond me… We talked a lot on what we SHOULD be doing for science communication strategically, but it seemed to lack that follow through of funding and prioritisation that you need in a business. Eh. It was definitely interesting, but not terribly relevant.

Sub-plenary
Described in the program as “the future of science reporting” I was really disappointed to find the session only heard from print media reporters… sure, it was interesting to hear their ideas about the future of magazines and newsletters, but the future of science reporting encompasses radio, television, blogs and STACKS more than print media. Plus one of the speakers actually said that newspapers were more reliable and accurate then blogs. Uh huh. Sure. Newspapers are accurate eh? Have you heard about Bad Science? And you think blogs are inaccurate? Have you even TRIED reading The Loom and Not Exactly Rocket Science? I’m sorry, but if you think blogs are bad and newspapers are good, you’re living in the past and it’s time to update.

Session Three – Denialists, sceptics and quackery
The panel included the president of the Australian Skeptics. It was described in the program as TACKLING these kind of viewpoints. Damn it if we didn’t just describe the damn problem in a self-rightous way! Yes, I KNOW homeopathy, chiropractics and the anti-vaccine lobbyists say some whacko stuff and have a scary amount of followers, but how do we REACH those believers and talk to them about the actual science? I’m already aware of the problems, I want to talk about solutions, and sadly we barely hit the very tippy top of the iceberg in this session. I’d like to come back to that idea later in this blog while I’m still in swashbuckling scientist mode.

Session Four – Freelancing
“Be a media slut until you can get paid!” No… I actually found this professional development session really worthwhile. Their “get published anyway you can” approach was, I think, good advice to someone starting out. I am certainly keen to start writing for anyone and everyone to garner up a folio of clippings! Ideas included writing for a uni newsletter, contributing to refereed websites, writing for local newsletters, and getting involved with community TV and radio. Yep, I can do that.

Session Five – Determining Junk Science
Our speaker was like Ben Goldacre for peer reviewed journals. OMG the things he said were scary! Over 50% of published journals mess up their statistics or do not explain their error bars! That’s just bad science! Worse than that, a basic knowledge of Poisson distribution should show reviewers when results have been fudged, because the given standard distribution is insanely narrow for the cell counts they are doing. Worst of all are the western blots, who under pretty rudimentary scrutiny by increasing contrast are shown to be cut and pasted, in some cases duplicated or mirror images used later on – basically results completely fabricated and falsified to create results that are flawed in their flawlessness. This session was an eye-opener, and it was good to remember the old stats homework and find some use for them.

Overall though, a conference is about networking, and I met some great people who are doing fantastic things with science communication. If you met me at the conference and scored a business card (yes, I have those now!) then it was lovely to meet you. It was also great to hang out with the gang from the RiAus, who were my SciComm pals in bonny Adelaide and are still doing some amazing things there. Wish I could attend the conference Tuesday and Wednesday, but sadly study calls and I must answer the siren song of commitment.

DNA dating websites – the genetics of love

// February 5th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Just for Fun, Sex and Reproduction

A new brand of “scientific” dating has sprouted up. It draws on an idea wrote about in the Chemistry of Kissing – basically, you have more snap, crackle and pop with someone who has an immune system very different to your own. Through your genes combined, the resulting offspring will have a stronger, more diverse immune system giving them an evolutionary advantage. Now this idea has been monetized to bring you GenePartner DNA Matching, because love is no coincidence.

For $99 US you get a kit so you can take a saliva sample and send it back to them for analysis. Two weeks later you’ll have your results, they’ll build up a profile for you, and you can start finding your perfect genetic match! *love*

What a service they offer too! They match partners based not only on how attracted you will be to them, but also how attracted they’ll be to you.

Plus they give you the probability of a successful pregnancy – which just feels like jumping the gun a bit to me. Really, you haven’t even MET the person and you want to know how likely it is you’ll get pregnant. I understand it’s super-important to some people, but it’s a bit ridiculous to expect a test like this to tell you about such a complicated thing as fertility.

The other bonus they list is that their site will prevent inbreeding. Then again I think the chances of accidentally inbreeding are pretty small. The world’s a big place, and most people know to look for a partner outside of their living room.

Honestly, DNA Dating, what will they think of next? Is there anything else they can cram science into in order to sell love?

Actually it reminds me of Gattaca, where they have booths set up where you can analyse stolen DNA from your lips after a kiss, or from the hair sample you swiped, if you’re that way inclined.

Arr!!! I think there be nothing wrong with the old fashioned method of kissing people, it’s cheaper! Who’s with me?

St Elmo’s Fire

// January 31st, 2010 // 5 Comments » // How Things Work

Some sailors regard it with fear and amazement, others see it as an omen of things to come, but when I see St Elmo’s Fire burning on the masts above I am struck with curiousity for this most bizarre natural phenomenon.

St Elmo’s Fire appears as a blueish glow gracing the tips of masts and other pointy objects (lightning rods, swords, staffs, unusually long noses) during thunderstorms. You may have heard of it before, it’s been mentioned in such classics as Tintin in Tibet, Terry Pratchett’s Nation, and Moby Dick.

Despite the name, it’s not fire. It’s actually plasma, just like lightning – except instead of travelling from a cloud to the ground it just… well.. glows. It works a bit like neon lights do – energy from stormy weather (rather than a powerpoint) collect on an object and discharge. When the discharge is strong enough, it ionises gasses in the air which makes them glow. It mostly happens on pointy objects because electric fields are strongest on curves – the curvier the object, the stronger the field.

The colour is blue simply because oxygen and nitrogen glow blue when they ionise (how’s that for a circular argument? I’m sure it’s got more to do with molecular spectroscopy *shudder* more than I want to go into tonight, but if you’re curious drop me a comment.) If our air was full of neon it would be all orange, and how cool would that be?!

St Elmo’s Fire was originally named for St Erasmus – the patron saint of sailors – but whoever came up with the name should get a prize because it sounds great. Off the top of my head I can think of three fantastic things which have stolen the name. It was the title of one of the Teen Power Inc books of my childhood. As a teenager I saw the awesome 80’s movie about the twenty-somethings who tackle life and relationships after leaving college. And lately I have been listening to the old song by John Parr… I can never pick up the words except for the titular line “in St Elmo’s Fi-yar!”… I have no idea what it means in this context but for some reason (probably the science) it really resonates with me. Click through to the lyrics.

I can see a new horizon
Underneath the blazin’ sky
I’ll be where the eagle’s
Flyin’ higher and higher
Gonna be your man in motion
All I need is a pair of wheels
Take me where my future’s lyin’
St. Elmo’s Fire

Ohhhhh YEAH! St Elmo’s Fi-yah!

Why you can’t run your car on water

// January 28th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // How Things Work

For those of you who can’t sail to work like a pirate, or live too far away to walk or cycle, then chances are you use a car or motorbike to get around. You also probably feel guilty sometimes for the DAMAGE you’re doing to the environment, emitting toxic gasses and contributing to global warming and not offsetting your carbon emissions not to mention you’re not getting any exercise and who has the time to walk anyway and blah blah blah.

Sometimes driving comes with a side of guilt, and you may wish there could be a better way… Think, if only you could run your car on ethanol! It would save picking up a bottle of rum for a party. I’m not convinced on biofuels, they may be green, but I’ve heard that they use a huge amount of grains which could otherwise be eaten by the starving, which then leads to an ethically grey “my car is more important than your stomach” argument (although there are people starving now, it’s more an issue of how to get the existing food TO the hungry people, rather than us growing more food, so quanitity isn’t really the problem here anyway.) Bah, it gets too confusing for a pirate used to sails. Yet here is another option. Run your car on water.

The bonus? Green emissions. Your exhaust would be hydrogen and oxygen, what could be better?

The downside? It doesn’t freaking work.

Now for you who haven’t heard people talking about it and scoff at the mere suggestion of water as fuel, SHUT UP! People do think it’s possible, I know someone who tinkers away trying to remove every trace element of toxin from distilled water so it will work. But by looking at some basic chem, you can see pretty quickly that it won’t.

You see, water has already been burned. When you burn wood (or petrol for that matter) you take hydrocarbons, long chains of carbons and hydrogens, react them with oxygen to emit energy along with carbon dioxide and water.

Water is stable, which means it’s already low on energy. In order to get energy out of it, you’d need to break it into hydrogen and oxygen and then burn the hydrogen to make water again. Our engines are never 100% efficient (usually not even close), so it takes more energy to break the water apart then you would ultimately get out of burning the hydrogen.

Well, you may say, so you CAN run a car on water – you just need the engine to do two things – make hydrogen and burn hydrogen.

Sure, but how are you going to power the process to make the hydrogen? Please, PLEASE, correct me if I’m wrong, but sounds like stupid talk to me.