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Egg-laying and Circadian Clocks

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:55:21 -0500

On A Blog Around The Clock, Bora Zivkovic shares a newly published paper which he co-authored with researchers inspired by his blog. Their team recorded the egg-laying cycle of birds in the wild, where clutch sizes must answer to nature and not the hungry stewardship of a poultry farmer. They discovered that Eastern Bluebirds lay eggs along the same S-shaped interval curve observed in domesticated birds, which is "not dependent on external factors like food and energy, but [on] a fine-honed system of interactions between two circadian clocks." On Not Exactly Rocket Science, Ed Yong enumerates the successful qualities of toads, which over a relatively short time "diversified into around 500 species and spread to every continent except Antarctica." Although these pioneering amphibians may taste like chicken, some can lay clutches of 45,000 eggs at a time. On Neurophilosophy, Mo provides another example of circadian regulation, in the case of electric fish who must meter their power wisely. The discharge of some species, which can reach up to 500 volts, was found to be "weakest during the day, but its strength increased by approximately 40% at nighttime." Fish use this electricity for perception as well as defense, and piscine social encounters also led to brief surges of power.

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A Booster Shot of Science

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:11:48 -0500

Vaccines have guarded health and life for centuries, relegating once devastating diseases to near total obscurity. But many people now take vaccines for granted, and some blame vaccines for autism and other disorders. On Respectful Insolence, Orac reports the downfall of 1998 research which first tied MMR vaccines to the occurrence of autism in children. As Orac writes, "hearing that the man whose bad science launched a thousand quackeries had finally been declared unethical and dishonest [...] brought joy to my heart, the joy that comes with seeing justice done." ERV jumps on other news, concerned that it could fuel anti-vaccine alarmism. Researchers inspecting animal vaccines discovered an infectious endogenous retrovirus originating from the cat cell lines used in vaccine production. This "distinct-from-but-related-to feline leukemia virus" raises concerns about vaccines passing ERVs from one species to another. Finally, Janet Stemwedel on Adventures in Ethics in Science vents some steam after reading student attitudes toward H1N1 vaccination in the school newspaper. Janet criticizes both the newspaper for juxtaposing "reliable information from experts with whatever a student wandering across the reporter's path might happen to opine," and the students themselves for holding forth their unscientific optimism.

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Celebrating Henrietta Lacks

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:22:12 -0500

On February 2, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by ScienceBlogger Rebecca Skloot was officially published. If you haven't heard, everyone who has read this book has wonderful things to say. Dr. Isis on On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess declares it "the single best piece of non-fiction I have ever read. It is one of the most important stories of the last 100 years and should be required reading for every scientist and physician-in-training." Henrietta Lacks was a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cervical cancer cells gave rise to the first immortal human cell line. Long after she herself died, HeLa cells continued to multiply, playing a critical role in several scientific breakthroughs. But as Ed Yong describes on Not Exactly Rocket Science, Henrietta never consented to this use of her cells, and her family went 20 years without knowing that part of her was still alive. These days, HeLa is ubiquitous, as "50 million tonnes of these cells have been grown in churning vats of liquid all over the world." Scicurious on Neurotopia calls the book "a labor of love:" "a love of science, a love of history, and over all things, a love of people." PalMD on The White Coat Underground values the book for its insight into "the legal and ethical background of human tissue culture." And Abel Pharmboy on Terra Sigillata emphasizes that "Skloot's book is of far broader appeal than just the scientific community." As much about humanity as it is about science, this is a story no one should miss.

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ScienceBlogs—like Titanic or the Lakers

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:11:09 -0500

Times Online's listing of Eureka's Top 30 Science Blogs caught David Dobbs by surprise—but really, none of our resident genii should bat an eyelash. Altogether, Sciblings nabbed eleven of the thirty slots, proving we call ourselves ScienceBlogs with good reason. Congratulations to Bora Zivkovic, Tim Lambert, Revere, Daniel MacArthur, Brian Switek, the incredulous Mr. Dobbs, Scicurious and crew, Ed Yong, PZ Myers, Orac, and SciencePunk Frank Swain. But what about the likes of ERV, Jonah Lehrer, Razib Khan, and everyone else who gives this site a good name? Sure, a clean sweep might raise some suspicions, but when a climate change denialist makes the cut, you know there's room for more science. Luckily, Eureka recognizes its limitations, and asks us for a helping hand:

So, now we've shown you ours, we want you to show us yours. We know our 30 blogs are not exhaustive; they're a subjective take on the best bloggers out there. We'd like you to help us us to compile the definitive list, the Top 100 Science Blogs. Send the name and url of your favourites to eureka@thetimes.co.uk, with "Best blogs" in the subject line.

Here's our chance for total hegemony! Let The Times know what you think.

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Epochs Underfoot

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:25:46 -0500

Fossils offer a rare glimpse into the past, as lifeforms we could scarcely imagine are preserved long after their day in the sun. But fossilization requires very specific conditions, and few things that die are turned to stone. On Living the Scientific Life, GrrlScientist presents Haplocheirus, a theropod with "three toes, a birdlike keel-shaped chest and a long beak," but also "small teeth, like a dinosaur." This creature bolsters the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs through independent lines. On Not Exactly Rocket Science, Ed Yong discusses fossilized dinosaur fuzz, which contains "the distinctive signs of melanosomes, small structures that are partly responsible for the colours of modern bird feathers." Not only does this discovery strengthen the bird-dinosaur link, it also means we can fill in our Jurassic coloring books with a little more authority. And on Highly Allochthonous, Anne Jefferson describes the "verdant forests" of the Eocene epoch, which prospered in now-desolate polar regions when the Earth was a few degrees warmer. Canadian authorities may soon allow mining of "coal beds in one of the most spectacular of all the fossil localities in the High Arctic," which Anne encourages us to oppose. When we dig up something new, it can change our understanding of everything.

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Sirius History & the Future of NASA

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:59:54 -0500

On Starts With A Bang, Ethan Siegel presents us with an interstellar mystery. As the single brightest star in the sky, Sirius has been well-known since ancient times. But while Sirius is unmistakably blue, several historical records describe Sirius as red. Two thousand years is not enough time for a normal star to change color, so what could have happened? Simple human error? Changing atmospheric conditions? A roving Bok Globule? Or does Sirius's companion dwarf star suggest an even more incredible explanation? In a separate post, Ethan says he won't miss NASA's Constellation program, a Bush-era plan to establish "an extended human presence on the Moon." Ethan writes that returning to the moon "has no clear scientific merits," and funding should go to more awe-inspiring pursuits such as "landing humans on other planets," or "perhaps even reaching for another star system." Meanwhile Matt Springer on Built on Facts finds that Constellation's cancellation leaves NASA's glass half-empty, with nowhere to go but down. Matt warns that NASA may soon be "strangled to death in bureaucracy," stripped of "the inspiration that keeps the agency in the public eye."

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Inspiring One Another

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:10:58 -0500

We inspire each other with our everyday actions and attitudes--monkey see, monkey do. On The Frontal Cortex, Jonah Lehrer describes an experiment in which individuals who observed their peers choosing carrots over cookies were more likely to make the same thoughtful choice themselves. Jonah explains that self-control "contains a large social component" and plays a very important role in our development. But what can you do when everyone beats their heads against the same wall? On Aardvarchaeology, Martin Rundkvist recounts the "tragicomical" history of bog reclamation, which has continued over the past three centuries despite peat proving uncompetitive and reclaimed bog infertile. Dried-out parcels would simply "sink back down into the lowered water table," leaving nothing but destroying "the environment and the archaeological record." Finally, on The Primate Diaries, Eric Michael Johnson honors the legacy of Howard Zinn, who died this week at 87. Zinn challenged the historical status quo with his view that history is driven by "a network of dedicated individuals," and not merely the "Big Men" whose names are printed and remembered.

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Safety: Life or Death

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:08:47 -0500

Recognizing the drawbacks of uranium reactors, Mike the Mad Biologist explains that using thorium for nuclear fuel would produce safer energy. Uranium was originally established as the element of choice "since it would yield plutonium which could be used to build nukes," but thorium reactions produce less waste, less radioactivity, and no leftovers for warheads. Because of its other properties, thorium also works in new reactor designs that are safe from the threat of meltdown. On Effect Measure, Revere shows us the result of an unsafe workplace at a Dupont chemical plant which suffered four dangerous lapses in a span of two days. One of these was the death of a man who walked into a small leak of phosgene gas, a modern pesticide precursor which was once "used as a gas warfare agent in WWI." And on Respectful Insolence, Orac discusses medical safeguards, such as simple checklists to ensure that surgeons remove the right organ from the right person without leaving anything behind. Disturbed by two recent cases where mismeasured radiation killed ailing patients, Orac warns, "the more complex the system, the easier it is for error to creep in."

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A Few Head Scratchers

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:10:46 -0500

Love it or hate it, physics is a demanding subject. It defines much of our knowledge and experience in a daunting variety of ways. But really, you do love physics, don't you? On Uncertain Principles, Chad Orzel describes a modern implementation of "Maxwell's Demon," a dreamed-of 19th century device that could "cool a gas without obviously increasing entropy." While this may smack of perpetual motion, researchers have taken first steps toward realizing Maxwell's mechanism, using angled traps and lasers to winnow lower-energy atoms from a gas sample. On Starts With A Bang, Ethan Siegel explains the relative homogeneity of the solar system by imagining Jupiter much closer to the sun. At that distance its thick atmosphere would boil off, leaving behind "a hard, rocky core not all that different from our planet, except in terms of size and density." And on Built on Facts, Matt Springer expounds on the dynamics of a Foucault pendulum, which can "swing freely in any direction" and give the illusion that it rotates the plane of its swing. Matt also includes pictures of a new pendulum at the beautiful George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M.

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Authorial Issues

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:40:39 -0500

Self-expression is a human ideal, but just as you can be a virtuoso with a hammer, you can be a hack with a paintbrush. On Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer questions the value of painted canvas when the painters "neither recognize nor are particularly interested in" the scenes they produce. In the case of Chinese technicians who imitate western styles for the American market, Jessica asks, "isn't an artist's active creative input, his or her emotion and imagination, or at least some degree of innovation, essential to create 'art'?" Razib Khan considers literary issues on Gene Expression, saying it's okay that novelist James Patterson employs a team of co-writers to ink in his many projects. "The idea of the author as the lonely genius is very powerful," writes Razib, but "there's no reason that a workmanlike collaborative writing process necessarily entails lowest-common denominator fiction." On Confessions of a Science Librarian, John Dupuis compares what things an author can and cannot control in the publishing process. And On The Book of Trogool, Dorothea Salo shares the obstacles of authority control, when many authors may have the same name, and one author may have many.

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Efficiency: Mould vs. Man

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:29:27 -0500

Robert Burns wrote that the best laid schemes of mice and men go often askew, but Tokyo railway planners seem to have arranged things just right. Ed Yong on Not Exactly Rocket Science reports that Japanese researchers are exploring "better network design through biological principles," by setting a "slime mould" cell loose on an in vitro model of the greater Tokyo area. Food sources in the wet dish simulated nearby cities, and slime-repellant light approximated mountains and other natural barriers. As the cell grew, latching onto food sources and refining its connections, it settled into a network nearly identical to the actual Tokyo rail system. So why risk laying schemes when a mindless organism will do it for you? But while efficiency comes naturally to Physarum polycephalum, we humans have to work a little harder for it. Sharon Astyk on Casaubon's Book writes that it's easy for people to "get confused about what matters and how much," and offers ten ways to start doing more with less. And on The World's Fair, Vince LiCata criticizes the plague of onboard computers that is making fridges and other appliances useless before their time; as Vince says, "some things need computer control, some things really just don't."

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Synthetic Voices & Musical Notes

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:06:59 -0500

On Oscillator, Christina Agapakis lays out some of the history of synthetic biology. While in the last century this field has employed molecular and informational toolkits, in centuries past inventors relied on grosser modes of simulation. Such was the case with eighteenth century wetware, which aspired "to make machines look and feel more like living things—soft, flexible, moist." One of the grails of early synthetic biology was the simulation of the human voice, and to this end we see such terrors as a fake face attached to a phonetic keyboard, which allowed "an operator to play a 'human' voice like a piano." In the age of computation, such machines soon gave way to the IBM 7094 crooning "Daisy Bell." Also of musical note, Dave Munger on Cognitive Daily explains bitonality and challenges us to hear the difference compared to monotonal samples. And on The Frontal Cortex, Jonah Lehrer investigates how music affects neural activity, as we enjoy and anticipate patterns but revel at the surprising pitch. Finally, don't miss a perfect excuse to listen to Hall & Oates on Greg Laden's Blog, in a video where students learned to lip-sync (and walk) backwards so they could later reverse the footage.

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Getting it All Wrong

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:14:05 -0500

Even with the best intentions, it's possible to get things wrong. And with lesser intentions, being wrong becomes easy. First, James Hrynyshyn on The Island of Doubt reports that the IPCC will retract its 2007 prediction that global warming could melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. Although the IPCC promises "the best peer-reviewed science available," this faulty prediction whispered its way from article to article in a game of journalistic telephone. Tim Lambert on Deltoid is grateful that the IPCC will correct their error, and observes that the current gaffe is getting more media attention than the actual 2007 report. But while the IPCC may have made an honest mistake, other sources seem to mix things up deliberately. Scicurious offers an example on Neurotopia, citing a perfectly good study which showed that stronger and/or more attractive individuals are more likely to prevail in conflicts of interest. In spinning this science, TimesOnline "had to go and say some rather false things," translating attractiveness to blondeness and invoking the questionable phrase "warrior princess." Dave Bacon on The Quantum Pontiff catches New Scientist in a similar bit of sensationalism, as they recently entangled "local field potential measurements in a monkey's brain" with hardcore quantum mechanics. With interest coming at the price of inaccuracy, should we as readers let bygones be bygones?

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Barricading the Body

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:29:42 -0500

If not always wieldy, armor offers great protection against teeth, talons and pincers--not to mention blades, bullets and shrapnel. On Not Exactly Rocket Science, Ed Yong reports that a deep sea snail has evolved one of the toughest shells on the planet, a three-layer system that has scientists rethinking the possibilities of human armor. These creatures must survive "highly acidic water, scorching temperatures and crushing pressures"—as well as prying crabs—and have made the most of their unique environment in doing so. Brian Switek shows us a mammalian version of armor on Laelaps, in his discussion of the peculiar glyptodont. Brian likens these extinct relatives of the armadillo to "extensively armored ground sloths with hard bowl-shaped shells and club-like tails." And on Tetrapod Zoology, Darren Naish brings reptiles into the mix, with everyone's favorite walking fortress, the turtle. These particular turtles are unusual, however, in that they have reduced the boniness of their carapace, resulting in a soft, rubbery shell. When everyone's not out to get you, it's easy to let down your guard.

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Cause and Effect

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:42:42 -0500

Evolutionary change responds to all kinds of pressures, and sometimes, the results can be surprising. On Gene Expression, Razib Khan challenges the idea that human evolution has stopped since "the vast majority of humans reach the age of potential reproduction." He explains that differential mortality is not a precondition for natural selection, and supports his claim with data on human height and reproduction. In a separate post, Razib considers the feral dogs of Moscow, a pack of 35,000 with unique characteristics, such as the savvy to ride the subway. On Living the Scientific Life, GrrlScientist asks why some birds suffer the "tremendous sacrifices demanded by migration," when suitable nesting ground is often closer at claw. New research suggests these birds may brave the inhospitable latitudes precisely because these harsh climes are less likely to support ravenous predators. And on Guilty Planet, Jennifer Jacquet wonders if Somali piracy has improved the catch by discouraging commercial fishing, a phenomenon which was previously witnessed after WWII. While wars and piracy may have unexpected upshots, Jennifer writes that if we just "left the ocean alone, fisheries would likely rebound."

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