Alexander Ohlinger et al. at the Ludwig Maximilian Universitiy in Munich have constructed a highly sensitive sound collecting device using a gold nanoparticle confined in an optical trap. This trap acts like a pair of tweezers for sound waves traveling in a liquid medium. Apparently this nanoparticle setup can detect sounds down to  -60dB. The lowest sound a human can hear is around 0dB. The loudest we hear without pain is 120dB. To give you an idea of these numbers, according to WorsleySchool.net, a human whisper is about 20dB. A power saw is about 110dB.

It’s hard to imagine -60dB, but I hope they are able to do this. I’d love to hear what a bacterium sounds like as it’s shuffling around the miasma.

Sue Lange

“I guess the most interesting thing in my office is a little grey box, which contains the only copy we have of Stephen’s hardware voice synthesiser. The card inside dates back to the 1980s and this particular one contains Stephen’s voice. There’s a processor on it which has a unique program that turns text into speech that sounds like Stephen’s, and we have only two of these cards. The company that made them went bankrupt and nobody knows how it works any more. I am trying to reverse engineer it, which is quite tricky.”

The above paragraph is sublime.

Turning ourselves into cyborgs is not going to be as easy as everyone thought.  In our plans for posthumanism does anyone ever consider how much we will be paying when someone has the patent on the human heart?

Sue Lange

The opening festivities were held on January 27-28 at UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific & Cultural Organization) in Paris. In the opening ceremony Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director General, stated: “The chemistry of the future must be a responsible science.”

I take that to mean it has not been a responsible science in the past.

IUPAC President Nicole Moreau implored “chemists to do everything in their power to change the terrible public image of chemistry.”

The “terrible public image of chemistry” probably has a lot to do with whatever Ms. Bokova was alluding to.

For all the hype about how chemistry is going to save the planet, feed the people, provide bigger, faster, better transportation, we can’t forget its dark side. Think of napalm, DDT, the gas leak in Bhopal.

Even in the development of benign materials, such as synthetic baby formula,  astroturf, dacron and polyester, I don’t see world-saving progress. Sure, chemistry helps our lives in the form of pills and plastics and composite materials but it has also contributed to the cheapening of it.

Industrial chemistry aims to find efficient methods for extracting nourishment from the soil. We are reminded that the increase in population will be threatening the planet’s carrying capacity by the year 2050. The moguls of chemistry are confident they can meet that challenge. We won’t even need to change our lifestyles.

But I hope that along with better fertilizers, chemistry is working on better, safer methods of birth control as well. Because no matter how efficient food production becomes, it only leads to ever greater increases in our numbers. We will always be threatening the carrying capacity. At some point there will be no more energy to extract from the planet and then our numbers will dwindle for sure, but in a rather painful way.

Chemistry can do a lot of things and it’s an amazing discipline and yes we need to encourage young people to study this difficult subject. But encouragement along with studying  sustainability with emphasis on the quality of life is important too. Sure with the right chemistry there are virtually no limits to our growth. We can stack up human beings on top of each other and feed them intravenously but at some point we need to ask what is the point? Quality of life is just as important as quantity. Chemistry has contributed to quantity, it must also consider quality.

Some of the year’s events that did consider quality:

In the Philippines, they conducted a water treatment experiment.

In India, they held a Science Exhibition on Non-conventional energy sources. Non-conventional energy sources consist of those energy sources that are infinite, natural, and restorable. For example, tidal energy, solar energy, and wind energy.

In Japan, they held Surface Science – Towards Nano, Bio-, and Green Innovation.

And the Pittsburgh chapter of Cafe Scientifique invited Dr. Patricia DeMarco, Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University to speak on renewable-based energy economy.

There were thousands of events held throughout the world in as far flung places as Brazil, Sri Lanka, Bosnia, the UK, Japan, China, the U.S. and more. It’s good to know that around the world people are looking to arm themselves with knowledge of the chemical world. There are a lot of problems facing us as we move into the future. Our technology brings us amazing things but at some point we have to clean up after ourselves. Only with a thorough knowledge of chemistry will we be able to do that.

This post is the last in the 31 Days of Weird Science. There’s a lot more to investigate, tips to follow up on, so I’m sure I’ll have posts on the subject in the future. Just won’t be as regular as every day.

Thanks for reading.

Sue Lange

Sue Lange’s novel, Tritcheon Hash, is full of weird science and logical lapses. It’s a “wild, great read.”

I still don’t see the point of making robots look like humans, but I can say they’ve made a lot of progress in that direction. Asimo is certainly humanlike. If you can stand the hype check out Honda’s infomercial on Asimo. It makes some good points about what robots are and why.

Won’t be long  now.

Sorry, the posts are so short lately, but I’m under the weather and my surfing/thinking time is limited.

Sue Lange

What on Earth?

No. That’s just it. You’re not on Earth. You’re in a bloon. You mean balloon? Yes, exactly. Only it’s a bloon.

While Virgin Galactic is revving up its program to take you to low-Earth orbit (100 km) for $200,000, you can take a bloon to “near-space” (36 km) for a more modest $130.000. That’s not a lot of difference in price for a big difference in height, seems to me.

The bloon claims its operation is green, though. That’s its powerful selling point. But Virgin claims environmental respectability as well. I’m sure a balloon is cleaner than a space ship, but I don’t really know.

At any rate, I probably won’t be going any time soon. I’ll have to save up the windfall from the tooth fairy when my teeth fall out before I can afford the ticket.

Something to look forward to.

See you at the edge of the vacuum!

Sue Lange

Well, the cerebellum is part of the hindbrain, the primitive reptilian brain that we hear so much about. According to Wikipedia, the cerebellum “plays an important role in motor control. It may also be involved in some cognitive functions such as attention and language, and in regulating fear and pleasure responses.”

Sure fear and pleasure are primitive functions, but language? Doesn’t sound so primitive to me. I think it’s safe to say that an artificial cerebellum is not just the reptilian brain. However, in this case, we’re talking about a rat cerebellum, not a human cerebellum, so any language skills are going to be limited to squeaks and eyeblinks. I suppose.

Still fashioning a fake cerebellum has to be a milestone on the road to artificial brainware.

As per the SENS Foundation website that published the paper, Matti Minz at the Tel Aviv University, “replaced in a rat the cerebellar microcircuit essential for acquisition of eyeblink response by a biomimetic cerebellar model that received its sensory inputs from the PN and IO precerebellar nuclei and which send its output to the brainstem motor nucleus.”

Basically they removed the rat’s cerebellum, hooked a circuit board up to receive incoming signals from the rat’s eyeball when it received stimulation in the form of a puff of air. The circuit board then sent a signal to the brainstem to tell the rat to blink.

In a totally unrelated but even stranger story from a few years ago, here’s a rat brain flying an airplane. It’s not a real airplane, just a processor somewhere running a simulated airplane program. And it’s not the rat hooked up to anything, it’s a few neurons from a rat’s brain. And it appears limited in its abilities as “they can’t even remember how to fly that aircraft for more than about 15 minutes.” Regardless, pretty impressive.

So on the one hand we’re using software to replace rat  intelligence and on the other we’re using real biological rat brains to run software. Is that what they mean by circular reasoning?

Don’t these two projects cancel each other out? I think the two research groups should get together for a beer. Or something else that counts for progress.

Thanks for reading.

Sue Lange

I remember thinking, right, like that’s going to work. I couldn’t believe that it would be healthier for a wild animal to live in a cage. I couldn’t imagine humans would not botch it up. Introduce some horrible new disease and wipe out the entire population in the course of season. Or maybe the project would run out of money and the poor birds would be dispensed to various zoos across the country. A breeding pair to Toledo, a solitary old couple to the National Zoo in D.C. I held out no hopes for this lost bird.

I am overjoyed to say I was way wrong.

The biologists have done well. The California condor population is not yet thriving but it is increasing. According to the National Park Service, there are 394 birds as of October 31 and most of them–205 of them–are living out in the wild. Some of them are even being born free!

My throat gets all lumpy when I think of it. Condors produce one egg every two years. And that egg is not always fertile.  I can’t believe the success the condor program has had so far when faced with such odds.

Condors are majestic birds; the adults have a wingspan of over 9 feet. They live up to 60 years and mate for life. Although the birds once numbered in the thousands, their numbers in recent times dwindled, mostly due to habitat loss and use of lead shot and DDT. Since the birds are scavengers, they are at the very top of the food chain. Whatever is found in the bodies of their prey will wind up in theirs. And as  lead and DDT accumulated in the environments, so too did it accumulate in the condors’ prey and then, of course, in the condors themselves.

Fortunately DDT was eventually banned. Unfortunately lead is still a problem. According to the Hunting With Non-Lead Ammunition website, “Once lead bullet fragments are taken into the digestive system, the lead is dissolved by the very acidic conditions found in bird and mammal stomachs.  This dissolved lead is absorbed into the bloodstream and then into the tissues and bones.  Once present, the lead destroys the myelin sheath that insulated the nerve fiber bundles. This disruption causes a number of problems, including tremors, convulsions, lack of coordination, paralysis of the digestive system, and eventually either kills the animal outright or makes it too weak to avoid predators.”

Lead shot is not just a problem for condors alone. Other birds, such as bald eagles, as well as animals such as humans can be poisoned by it. In my  mind, the incentive to switch to steel and copper is high. Believe it or not hunting organizations, such as Ducks Unlimited, are at the forefront of conservation and as such, I’m confident that this no-lead thing will get sorted out by the hunters themselves.

Of course there are always the unbelievers, those that don’t buy into the lead/condor death connection. In the interest of fairness, here’s a vitriolic argument from Guns Magazine. Mr. Bodinson brings up good points and he may be right, but there is no rebuttal published alongside this article. Did the magazine even contact the Peregrine Fund to answer Mr. Bodinson’s questions? It’s hard to accept his argument out of hand when there’s so much at stake.

I’m sure lead shot is cheaper than steel or copper, otherwise there would be no argument at all. And I understand if someone is hunting as a means to supplement an inadequate income, but the world is no longer as simple as it once was. Humanity’s impact on the environment is much bigger than it ever was when we were all living a little closer to the bone. If the lead in the environment is not coming from hunting operations, we need to find out where it is coming from. That should have been Mr. Bodinson’s argument, rather than just petulantly folding his arms across his chest and insisting he wasn’t buying it. What if he’s wrong? The price is too high.

The way I see it, the biologists have done a miraculous job in bringing these condors back. They’ve got a long way to go, and yes, it costs tons of money, but as they are safeguarding the environment for the condors, they are safeguarding it for all the wild animals. And us. That goes a long way. And if it costs a lot of money, that’s only because as humans we’ve done a lot of damage and now we have to pay for it.

Here’s wishing the condor all the success of the new year and a happy return to the wild.

Sue Lange

The Alliance includes hundreds of members from all over, mostly older folks as far as I can tell. Which makes sense, budding physicists do well to stay away as their reputation will be tarnished if they are seen in the company of these anarchists. Unfairly I might add. Science is supposed to be open to question. Theories knocked about. But sadly NPA members’ objections to current physics dogma are not allowed consideration.

Not only do the members not agree with established physics, they do not agree on what modern physics should be. They openly argue with each other at their conferences. Disagreement is encouraged. Take a look at the list of topics covered in this year’s past NPA conference. You’ll see things like:

Neo-Newtonian Theory
Failure of the Relativistic Hypercone
The Neutron: Modeled as a Fieldstructure
The True Direction of Gravitational Force
The Neutrino: Doomed from Inception

The  members are considered by mainstream physicists as cranks, their ideas crackpot. They may very well be, but when you visit the site you get the feeling that these people have thought long and hard about modern physics, that they understand it, and find fault with it. Even if they are dead wrong, they are eloquent and that makes them hard to ignore in my opinion.

Are they dead wrong? Dunno. Would love to find out.

As a starting point, the group is  concentrating its efforts in one area: special relativity. NPA founder, John E. Chappell, is particularly annoyed with special relativity. “I agree with most of my NPA colleagues that SR never was valid, never will be valid, and in fact cannot possibly be valid,” he says.  “There is no other issue on which the authoritativeness of modern physics can be more effectively challenged; and so I have urged my NPA allies to concentrate our efforts most intensely on criticizing and replacing SR.”

Presumably what the Alliance is annoyed with is that physics seems to be defined by the mathematics, not by observation of reality. The same sort of thing I wrote about in regards to the Multiverse Theory. Einstein came up with special relativity so Maxwell’s equations would work. The Alliance members feel we don’t need to throw out Newton because of Maxwell. We don’t need to have two physics,  one for the macro world, one for the micro.

It’s the sort of thing that always bugged me about Shroedinger’s cat. Theoretically it’s both dead and alive. But that has no meaning for us and is surely not the case. It has to be one or the other at any point in time. And once it’s dead it can’t be alive later. That’s the nature of being “alive.” But it’s one of those things in modern physics that you have to accept on faith and go from there. Really what good is that? Because I can’t conceive of it means there’s a deficiency in me.  Yes, true enough, but it also might mean there’s a deficiency in the definition of reality. Making something up so it works with previous assumptions doesn’t make it or the previous assumptions true. That puts it in the realm of mysticism. Only the truly faithful will understand, the rest of us don’t count because we can’t see.

I’ll buy that, but that doesn’t make it so. I think what the Alliance is trying to do is make modern physics come clean. Admit that there is no hard and fast proof for certain assumptions; that the proof modern physics relies on has a basis in faith.

I don’t know if they’re right, but I do know that these people’s ideas are treated the same way believers of perpetual motion are treated. And I suspect they are a long way from that.

I firmly believe in the laws of thermodynamics, even if they were never proven. It’s intuitive that perpetual motion machines will not work. I’m not as sure about the laws of special relativity, quantum mechanics, and Shroedinger’s dang cat, but that’s just me. The question I’m left with is: if the NPA is right and special relativity is wrong, what will be the consequences for the standard model of particle physics and other areas of modern thought? What gets thrown out the window? I’ll be watching the skies for hints.

Thanks for reading.

Sue Lange

The question I have is, why, in these hip and enlightened times, are we still superstitious?

According to Time Magazine’s Your Brain: A User’s Guide, “having faith can improve your health…People who attend religious services do have a lower risk of dying in any given year than people who don’t attend.”

As an aside, it’s not just belief in any old god that’s important. The kind of god comes into play. “People who believe in a loving God fare better after a diagnosis of illness than people who believe in a punitive God.”

Interesting.

So there’s a link between faith and long life. What is it about religion that keeps you healthy?

Lots of theories come to mind, the most obvious being if you love God, then God loves you back. Kind of selfish on God’s part, don’t you think? How about: Smart people believe in God; smart people know how to take care of themselves.

That could be it, but I doubt it. I don’t think IQ has anything to do with religiosity.

Personally I think the religion/health connection has to do with the social factor. People are happier if they are part of a social network. Religion often provides a nurturing social place (especially if your God is a loving God as opposed to a punitive God). And there’s a clear link between depression and ill health. The happier you are, the healthier you are. You could do worse than hanging with your homeys at church.

There are other reasons why the religious are healthier. The December issue of Scientific American mentions that certain religions frown on smoking, drinking, taking recreational drugs, and engaging in risky sex. Not participating in those behaviors goes a long way in keeping you healthy. Religion promotes self-control which curbs self-destructive behaviors.

Finally, there’s prayer. Specifically prayer healing the sick and dying. There have been tons of experiments designed to prove whether or not prayer works. These experiments seem to prove whatever the experimenter wants them to prove so I’m not sure they prove anything at all. However, I believe prayer can heal. I say this because I know the placebo effect heals as well. The human body can heal itself. All it takes is a method to tap into the inherent healing power of the body. Call it prayer, call it the placebo effect, whatever it takes, the body will heal itself. Even knowing that someone else is praying for you in your time of need will speed you on your recovery. It doesn’t even have to be your own prayer for your own health.

So the reason for the popularity of religious belief seems obvious to me: it endows you with longer and healthier life. What’s not to love?

Come all you faithful, joyful and triumphant.

Thanks for reading.

Sue Lange

Don’t tell me: the avant garde is at it again? They’ve come up with a ghoulish mashup between art and health?

No and no. We’re talking about a technique that marks the periphery of a cancer mass so surgeons can tell where the tumor ends and normal tissue begins. Differentiating between the two is an iffy process at best. I imagine surgeons try to err on the side of caution and take more tissue than what they need to. Even then they’re never sure and some cancer probably gets left behind. This new technique will color code the tumor cells for easy identification.

Not actually color code them, but make them fluoresce, light up brightly, shine in the night.

Here’s how it works: A few hours before ovarian surgery, the patient is intravenously fed a solution containing fluorescent-marked folate, more specifically: Folate-Receptor-alpha-targeted fluoerescent agent.

The surface of ovarian cancer cells apparently over-express for folate. According to Merriam-Webster, genes over-express by producing too much of the gene’s effect or product. So in the case of folate and ovarian cancer cells, I guess the genes in the cancer cells sweep up the excess folate in the system from the intravenous drip and deposit the folate products near the surface of the cancer cells. Since the folate molecules from the drip are tagged with a fluorescent dye, these cells glow with the oncological equivalent of an x-marks-the-spot sign.

If you’re not too squeamish, watch the amazing video.

Here’s hoping they find the folate equivalent for every type of cancer’s over-expression.

Of course it’s better to prevent cancer in the first place, but barring a miracle that produces a chemical-, x-ray-, cosmic background-, and free-radical-free existence, cancer’s going to be around for some time to come. Bring on the avant garde.

Thanks for reading.

Sue Lange

Check out Sue Lange’s latest novel, Tritcheon Hash, “a wild good read.”