Month: May 2014

You don’t really F@^king Love Science

You don’t love science, you’re looking at its butt when it walks by. That sums up my feelings on a lot of the IFLS type shares. I have a passion for science and science outreach. Nic Hammond jokingly asked on his share of the Cyanide and Happiness cartoon, Do you even science, Bro?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased that people are interested in science. What I’m annoyed with is the flashy, hyped, hipster style science related posts. In this Twitter/SMS-speak world, where people’s attention span is about 1 minute, not many people take the time to fully read any science posts. They plus the flashy image or hyped up title and that’s it. A while ago I found an image that looked photoshopped so I started thinking about the physics of it and wrote a post about it. How many of the IFLS people shared the original image/post versus my version that discussed why it was probably photoshopped? If you really F@^king love science, did you try the experiment yourself? You only need a glass and water. I’m sorry if this comes across as jealousy or sour grapes. That’s not my intention.

Photoshopped or Real: my vote is photoshopped

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ChadHaney/posts/hzX8dQSC49o

Buddhini Samarasinghe has a great discussion going on, on her share of the Cyanide & Happiness cartoon with her own thoughts on the topic.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BuddhiniSamarasinghe/posts/Ua9gmTsQA8g

It takes a lot of work to do science and take the time to share it in layman’s terms. It’s also very rewarding when we get positive discussions. A lot of us, like Buddhini, Rajini Rao Allison Sekuler , Carissa Braun , Brian Koberlein etc work hard doing science and work equally hard sharing it on social media (that’s not meant to be an exhaustive list by any stretch).

We are working on breaking out of the stereotype that scientist are boring, white lab coat wearing, nerds. There is nothing wrong with nerds. I’m just not a fan of the trying to be nerdy to be ironic and hip. Nerd Nite (http://nerdnite.com/) is actually a really cool idea. I’d love to expand Nerd Nite to Google Hangouts. If you are passionate about something, share it with all the gory details but let’s skip some of the jargon.

Here’s an old post about the scientist stereotype. 

Hey scientist, smile!

http://goo.gl/2E8Cu

There is still work to do to get people really excited and involved with science. As a scientist, I have to look at my own evidence, and my science posts are dwarfed by my posts of drivel.

Science vs. drivel v2

http://goo.gl/FjBsj7

So if you really F@^king Love Science, try doing some science. Try engaging with some scientists here. Better yet, tell your legislative representative to support science with more research funding.

Image sources:

TwistedDoodles

http://goo.gl/JDeF88

via Amine Benaichouche

Cyanide & Happiness Explosm

http://explosm.net/comics/3557/

#ScienceSunday  

edit  h/t to Brent Neal  for the second cartoon.

What can you see, in your pee?

I’m vaguely familiar with the myth that your pee is essentially sterile. However, it turns out to be false. Dr. Linda Brubaker and colleagues examined the urine of 41 overactive bladder female patients and 24 control female patients. 48 of 65 of samples were negative, i.e., so-called sterile using standard urine culture procedures. However, using an expanded procedure, 80% of the samples were found to contain bacteria. I’m not a molecular biologist so I won’t try to explain the difference between the standard and expanded culture procedures. The interesting thing is that overactive bladder might be linked to changes in your microbiome. Again, we are learning more and more about the importance of our microbiome.

I’ve talked about microbiome before.

What’s buggin’ you?

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ChadHaney/posts/gYFZudc9K4L

Bugged about diet induced obesity

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ChadHaney/posts/Hn32hWR7jxP

Making a big stink

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ChadHaney/posts/3jgfBfsR8Fw

Sources:

Urine is not sterile: use of enhanced urine culture techniques to detect resident bacterial flora in the adult female bladder.

J Clin Microbiol. 2014 Mar;52(3):871-6

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24371246

Study debunks common myth that urine is sterile

http://goo.gl/qgIH4e

Image source:

http://goo.gl/qu0DLw

#ScienceSunday  

Bilateral prophylactic mastectomy

Kelly Rothe decided to get a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy, i.e. preventative removal of both breasts. She’s a big Red Wings fan (who isn’t) and in particular, a big fan of goaltender Jimmy Howard. Because the Red Wings organization is so classy, the video below shows what they did for this young lady.

The rest of this post focuses on the science. You may recall that kerfuffle when Angelina Jolie decided to get a bilateral prophylactic mastectomy. So here is some info and links to hopefully inform you a bit more. 

I’m not sure where Kelly get the 85% risk from. However, the risk is certainly higher for some women with specific genetic profiles.

In two studies, the estimated risks of developing breast cancer by age 70 years were 55 to 65 percent for women who carry a deleterious mutation in the BRCA1 gene and 45 to 47 percent for women who carry a deleterious mutation in the BRCA2 gene (6,7). Estimates of the lifetime risk of breast cancer for women with Cowden syndrome, which is caused by certain mutations in the PTEN gene, range from 25 to 50 percent (8,9) or higher (10), and for women with Li-Fraumeni syndrome, which is caused by certain mutations in the TP53 gene, from 49 to 60 percent (11). (By contrast, the lifetime risk of breast cancer for the average American woman is about 12 percent.)

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Therapy/risk-reducing-surgery

Why do BRCA1 mutations cause primarily breast and ovarian cancers?

http://goo.gl/jTpcXA via Ian Bosdet

Breast Cancer Signs & Symptoms

http://goo.gl/ScqWsk via Letha McGarity

Bras and Breast Cancer

http://goo.gl/FNqrnS via Buddhini Samarasinghe

Salty MRI

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+ChadHaney/posts/VJ2k6h2taRQ

At a seminar about BRCA1 and BRCA2, Dr. Olopade shared a story about finding women in South America that had unknown Jewish ancestors from Spain. The South American women were carriers of BRCA mutations and did not know that their Jewish ancestors fled from Spain to South America.

Haplotype structure in Ashkenazi Jewish BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21597964

Ashkenazi Jews

http://www.jewfaq.org/ashkseph.htm

#ScienceSunday  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B9h6-rjK-0