I think this is a great idea for kids. I also like to see that the operator is female. We actually use Legos to test our MRI scanners. We put a Lego or Legos into a 50 mL tube with copper sulfate (it has a lower relaxation time than water). Because the Lego is plastic, i.e., doesn’t have protons that can interact with the magnet, it doesn’t have signal. So you get a void where the Lego is and you identify distortions (rather than a uniform image, if it were just plain liquid) if something is wrong with the system.
I had a group of professors from Nigeria visit the facility today. They are looking for ideas and suggestions on how to improve the academic research infrastructure in Nigeria and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. I couldn’t help but wonder if the first thing that comes to mind when people meet them is ebola. I think this HOA might help.
Originally shared by Science on Google+
Join us for a Science on Google+ Hangout on Air as we speak to Professor Vincent Racaniello and Dr Tara C. Smith about the recent Ebola outbreak. We will discuss the basics of Ebola, why the epidemic has spread, how it might be curtailed, and debunk some of the myths surrounding this outbreak. Please leave your questions on the Event page.
Vincent is a professor of virology at the University of Columbia and is a fantastic science communicator. Tara is an epidemiologist at Kent State University who has written numerous articles debunking some of the myths surrounding Ebola. This HOA will be hosted by Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe and Dr Zuleyka Zevallos. You can tune in on Sunday August 10th at 2.30 PM Pacific, 5.30 PM Eastern. The hangout will be available for viewing on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/ScienceHangouts) after the event.
I stumbled onto this today and it made me smile. Do you know what you call a home remedy that is scientifically proven to work?
Medicine!
“These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”
This “Quack Miranda Warning” is on every just about every woo-meister’s website. I see dozens of patients every day, and I never Mirandize them, so whats the deal?
There are three ways to look at this: the truthful way, the sinister way, and the bat-shit insane way.
1) Truth: Anyone who wants to sell you something that’s a load of crap must use this statement to cover themselves legally.
2) Sinister: Variation of above–someone wants to sell you something that you are supposed to believe is medically useful, but at the same time they tell you in fine print that it is not medically useful. When it doesn’t work, they don’t get sued. I wonder why anyone would buy something with that disclaimer attatched to it? When I treat someone for a medical problem, I pretty much say that I intend to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent a disease. Why would I say otherwise? It would be a lie. Also, who would go to see a doctor that told you that they didn’t intend to diagnose or treat disease. The whole thing is bizarre.
3) Bat-shit insane: The FDA and Big Pharma are in cahoots with the AMA to keep you from learning all the simple ways to treat diseases. They want your money, and they’ll do anything they can to get it from you, including suppressing the knowledge than anyone can learn to heal cancer.
I can’t really help the people who believe #3, but people who are willing to suspend their paranoia should read #’s 1 and 2 a few times. Unless you’re being arrested, no one should be reading you your rights. The Quack Miranda Statement is the red flag that should send you running.
Did you know the Komen Foundation has sued other charities?
In 2010, they spent more than $1 million suing smaller charities that used the phrase “for the Cure” in their names or in their events. The organization said that this was to prevent donor confusion. from:
Join us for a STEM Women HOA as we speak to Professor Siromi Samarasinghe from the University of Sri Jayawardenapura, Sri Lanka. Siromi lectures in organic chemistry and her research interests include the chemistry of tea compounds. She will talk to us about her research and career path, and also share her experiences of studying abroad and mentoring students.
This HOA will be hosted by Dr Zuleyka Zevallos and Professor Rajini Rao. You can tune in on Sunday 5th October at 1.30 PM Pacific or 9.30PM UK/ Monday 6th 7.30 AM AUS.
The UK Science Council define science as ”the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence”
As the Council explain, this methodology has some criteria…
”Scientific methodology includes the following:
Objective observation:Measurement and data (possibly although not necessarily using mathematics as a tool)
Evidence
Experiment and/or observation as benchmarks for testing hypotheses
Induction: reasoning to establish general rules or conclusions drawn from facts or examples
Repetition
Critical analysis
Verification and testing:critical exposure to scrutiny, peer review and assessment
Sounds all pretty straight forward doesn’t it? A bit too straight forward perhaps. We don’t all have a background in science so it’s not surprising that at times there is some confusion over what science is, how it is done, and what it can actually tell us about the natural and social world. Fortunately for us, there have been three excellent open access articles have been published in The Conversation this week which address some of the issues for communicating science:
Where’s the proof in science? There is none
Astrophysist Geraint Lewis from the The University of Sydney kicks of this fabulous trio by explaining one of the misconceptions of science: proof. Yes that’s right, science doesn’t really prove anything. So what does it do? In his article, Geraint hands the last word over to Richard Feynman. I think I will to:
”I have approximate answers and possible beliefs in different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything.”
Clearing up confusion between correlation and causation
Correlations are all to do with relationships between different factors. Like chocolate and Nobel Prize winners. Take a look at the graph below, produced by Franz Messerli of Columbia University. Apparently there is a correlation between chocolate consumption. We can even put a number on this – a ‘P value’ to describe the ‘strength’ of the correlation. In this case the value was 0.0001 – which means that “there is a less than one-in-10,000 probability of getting results like these if no correlation exists” . But as Mathematicians Jon Borwein and Michael Rose from the University of Newcastle (UON), Australia explain, correlation does not imply causation, which means that increasing your chocolate consumption won’t increase your chances of winning the Nobel Prize. http://theconversation.com/clearing-up-confusion-between-correlation-and-causation-30761
Why research beats anecdote in our search for knowledge
_”Certainty is seductive” writes Philosopher Tim Dean from the University of New South Wales, _”so we tend to cling to it. We hunt for evidence that buttresses it, while ignoring or rejecting evidence that threatens to undermine it”. Research, on the underhand, embraces uncertainty. It isn’t about finding evidence to back your point of view, it’s about increasing our knowledge – and doing so with a scientifically backed evidence base. For researchers, sometimes that means re-evaluating your point of view. http://theconversation.com/why-research-beats-anecdote-in-our-search-for-knowledge-30654
Image: From Franz Messerli’s paper Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Franz added a disclaimer to his paper, that he ”regular daily chocolate consumption, mostly but not exclusively in the form of Lindt’s dark varieties.” Unfortunately the paper is behind a paywall, but if you fancied a look you can find it here www.dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMon1211064
If you read the plaque below, it says that this tree was grafted from the apple tree that is said to have been the same tree that Sir Issac Newton saw an apple fall and developed his theory of gravity. This tree is at the entrance to the Cambridge University Botanical Garden. I had a lovely day there with my wife and Kimberly Chapman and her daughters. Maybe Peo (Kim’s older daughter) will write a blog about this tree as well. I’ll add a link here if she does.
Brian Koberlein wrote a great post about Newton’s Principia here (so I don’t have to):
Check out this great video of not only the Peacock Spider dance, but the music sound they make during the dance. Tune into Science Friday on NPR for more.
Many thanks to Yonatan Zunger for sharing this seemingly simple but important research. Dr Lenski, an evolutionary biologist, has looked at natural selection in an unnatural way. He’s looked at 60,0000 generations of E. Coli. He saves every 500th generation in a -80°C freezer, which can be reanimated at any time, to compare generations.
In cancer research, tumor cell lines from patients are often grown in media and used in in vitro and in vivo research. What Dr Lenski’s experiment shows, is relevant to cancer research, i.e., how close is your cell line to the “parent” or original cell line. The results of a new drug experiment could be compromised if the cell line is different than the cells that were originally taken from the patient.
#SciecneSunday
Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger
60,000 generations of people ago, Homo Erectus was walking around in Asia. It’s deep enough in time that evolutionary changes on this scale are no longer subtle, but obvious — but also deep enough in time that we can only examine it through archaeology. But what if we could replicate this in the lab?
Richard Lenski of Michigan State University has come up with a way to do just that: using E. coli, whose generations are far shorter. When the experiment began in 1988, he placed twelve genetically identical single cells of E. coli (they reproduce asexually, so you don’t need a large starter population) in twelve petri dishes, and exposed them to a particular, predictable environment that they weren’t used to: 6 hours of food, followed by 18 hours of starvation, every day.
Every 500 generations, a sample from each of these twelve lines was frozen. (E. coli takes well to freezing; they just stop doing anything until they’re thawed)
This past April, they passed the 60,000-generation mark. All twelve lines changed to grow faster during flush times and to have larger cells — reasonable adaptations to their environment — but the details in each line varied.
Experiments like these let us really understand the effects of chance on evolution, the speed at which traits can evolve, and so on. This isn’t obvious because evolution, especially in asexually reproducing creatures, works by a “random ratchet:” each generation may have some small differences from the last (how many? Are some kinds of differences more likely than others?) and this may or may not help the individuals survive and thrive. (But will that individual encounter circumstances where their particular genetic heritage is a help or a hindrance? Or will they simply get eaten randomly before they can reproduce, thanks to something unpredictable?) Selection pressures mean that genes better adapted to the situation on the average will spread more than genes less adapted to the situation, but without real experiments like these — in incredibly simplified and controlled situations like a fixed environment and an asexual species — we can’t get a good handle on how quickly things can adapt.
There are many more deep-time experiments which would be interesting to do, and the possibility of exploring tens of thousands of generations within a few decades makes it possible, although not easy. What would the speed be like if they could reproduce sexually, swapping traits? What would happen if half the lines were placed in one environment, and half in another — could we clock the rate at which the lines diverged?
This spider has an enormous web, probably 30 – 40 cm in diameter. I’ve only seen the spider at night, hence the crummy photo. It’s probably in the orb weaving family, Araneidae. From Chris Mallory in another post:
RE: spider families: if your spider makes a big web like this, you know, the “charlotte’s web” type web, then it is an orbweaver, family Araneidae. Cobweb spiders and house spiders (as well as widows) belong to a different family, the Theridiidae. If you’ve seen webs from any of these things, you could see that the two webs are nothing alike. They aren’t called “cobweb spiders” for no reason. This fact alone could rule out the possibility of a house spider even if the spider wasn’t present. Back to Orbweavers, aka “garden spiders”: there is not just one single species, with “yellow and black striped with a very noticeable white zig zag strand in the middle of the web.” There are about 4000 species. Though they all make this kind of web more or less, almost none of them fit that discription.
