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Let Them Eat Sushi - Chocolate Milk Out, Raw Fish In At L.A. Schools

Let Them Eat Sushi - Chocolate Milk Out, Raw Fish In At L.A. Schools

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

40% of the California budget goes toward education but it's not enough.   I can confirm that, at least in our schools.  My wife helped my son's Kindergarten teacher move out of her old classroom to go to a new school and the whole truck full of stuff was all things the teacher bought herself.

But where does the money disappear between taxes and teachers?  If you guessed fat salaries for Democratic-voting University of California and California State employees, you would be right; their rolls increased 300% since 1998 and now have to be furloughed.  But there is a lot more waste at all levels yet neither the administration nor the unions nor the government wants to accept any part in the problem.
San Francisco Goes After Goldfish

San Francisco Goes After Goldfish

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

San Francisco, always at the avant-garde of kooky, pointless gestures that annoy many and help few, thinks the worst problem it faces today are 'impulse' buys of goldfish, so they want to ban them.

Gotta put an end to the inhumane conditions perpetuated by the Big Goldfish military-industrial complex; their homes are completely underwater and they only get fed once a day.    Meanwhile, the pollution and slave labor of Apple barely gets noticed.  It helps that few activists own goldfish but all of them own iPhones.
Muon Neutrinos change 'flavors' to electron? A clue in why we are made of matter and not antimatter

Muon Neutrinos change 'flavors' to electron? A clue in why we are made of matter and not antimatter

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

Neutrinos are elementary particles that are fundamental building blocks of nature.  Neutrinos come in three types - muon, electron and tau - generally travel at the speed of light and can easily pass pass through ordinary matter, like Earth's crust.

Researchers with the Tokai to Kamioka experiment (T2K) at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex have discovered that muon neutrinos can spontaneously change their "flavor" to electron neutrinos. Scientists had previously measured the change of muon neutrinos to tau neutrinos and electron neutrinos to muon neutrinos or tau neutrinos, she said. 
Complexity And Rationality

Complexity And Rationality

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

Now we've covered the relationships with postmodernity in the previous post, (I promise not to bring it up again, but I have recently been accused quite often to be 'almost postmodern', which -being an engineer myself- I find rather absurd) it is time to turn our attention to an Enlightenment favourite, namely rationality.

Methodological Stuff:
Tropical Storm Increase Is Due To Better Detection, Not Climate Change?

Tropical Storm Increase Is Due To Better Detection, Not Climate Change?

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

In psychology, the increase in Autism diagnoses has three possible explanations; Autism is over-diagnosed because it is a fad, like ADD in the 1990s, more diagnoses are now made because it is better understood and therefore more accurate, or external things are creating more Autism.

So it goes with hurricanes and tropical storms.  There seem to be more of them.   At least with the third possibility, external events creating more of them, a new report in Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres says there is no evidence climate change is responsible.  Instead, better detection means shorter storms, those lasting two days or less, are being counted now and were not in the past.   
New Way To Change Genetic Code

New Way To Change Genetic Code

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

DNA codes for proteins, and, in doing so, is responsible for many processes that take place in our bodies. An important player in the processes that turn a DNA sequence into a functional protein (see figure 1), is messenger RNA, or mRNA. A recent study, published in Nature, has found a way to artificially modify this mRNA. This changes the ‘building instructions’ of the protein and results in a different protein than the one that was originally coded for.

Figure 1: From DNA to protein. 

(Source: http://www.dna-sequencing-service.com/dna-sequencing/mrna-dna/)
Many World Interpretation By Splitting A Wiener Sausage

Many World Interpretation By Splitting A Wiener Sausage

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

Quantum physics has proven that the world cannot be described by local realism. Therefore, Many-Worlds Interpretations (MWI) are now in vogue.

This is already wrong: Everett's is a relative state description, not necessarily a multiple worlds interpretation.

Defining Dallas - June 15

Defining Dallas - June 15

Jun 16 2011 | comment(s)

One of the most exciting things about working with kids on science is that suddenly you have a dozen curious and eager eyes, much sharper than yours and much closer to the ground, who are alert to things that older eyes might have missed.  This summer, while we're teaching at the Trinity River Audubon Society, I am taking the opportunity to use these sharp eyes and bright minds to help me investigate patterns of biodiversity at TRAC.

Trinity River Audubon Center is built on the old Deepwoods Lanfill, a notorious spot in Dallas that was a major source of pollution through the 80's and 90's.  It was declared a brownfield remediation site and was cleaned up and Audubon TRAC took over about 4 years ago.
LEED program for energy savings is faith-based more than science-based?

LEED program for energy savings is faith-based more than science-based?

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

The U.S. Green Building Council (not affiliated with the US government)  corporation and its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program is the biggest name in green-energy standards.  It's member-driven, so doesn't need to sell a product, it sells good intentions instead.

That may be part of the problem; it's "green" standards may not be helping much at all.
Wassup Baby Bird? The 'Casanova' Gene In Zebra Finches

Wassup Baby Bird? The 'Casanova' Gene In Zebra Finches

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

You may have heard that doves mate for life but they are a rarity in bird species.   In most, infidelity is a widespread phenomenon even though for females the costs are high because the cuckolded partners often reduce their parental care and extra lovers also may transmit diseases.

Yet female birds are just as promiscuous as males and researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen set out to investigate why.   In a genetic long-term study of zebra finches they found that females inherit the disposition for their infidelity from their fathers.

So men get the blame even when females sleep around?
More Annoying Than 3-D: Smells From Your Television

More Annoying Than 3-D: Smells From Your Television

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

Does 3-D television seem like a waste of time to you?   Perhaps you will like Smell-O-Vision more.

Or not.  Even if you like neither of those things, they are waypoints on the path to immersive, interactive environments.  So buy this stuff today and some day we Science 2.0 folks can solve mysteries on the Holodeck with Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Television programming executives want to be able to trigger your emotions as effectively as possible so engineers have focused on sight and sound - but that doesn't mean it has to stop there.   Wouldn't Pizza-Hut love to advertise right after the characters on a program eat some pizza and you can smell it?   Indeed they would.   
Squid Sneaks Into Newsletter

Squid Sneaks Into Newsletter

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

A while back I mentioned a project that was keeping me away from the blog . . . well, it's done now! I was hired by the director of Hopkins Marine Station, where I did my PhD, to write their annual newsletter. It took my relationship with Illustrator to a whole new level, and, while I've never yet been able to do a project with an Adobe product without some moments of GRRR and also ARGHH, it was overall a great experience.

The little squid illustration I posted earlier came from a feature I designed for the newsletter called "Hopkins Abroad," showing all the places that professors, students, and other researchers have traveled to study marine biology around the world:
Simon Baron-Cohen, Empathizing, Systemizing, And Wondering: What's My Q?

Simon Baron-Cohen, Empathizing, Systemizing, And Wondering: What's My Q?

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

Recently, I reviewed Simon Baron-Cohen's new book, The Science of Evil, and interviewed him concerning zero empathy, neurological disorders like autism spectrum disorders and personality disorders like narcissism, borderline, and psychopathy.
Modern Agriculture Has Been Bad For Our Health For 10,000 Years

Modern Agriculture Has Been Bad For Our Health For 10,000 Years

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

Anti-science progressives in a culture war over food insist modern agriculture - including where we precisely modify changes in genetics instead of letting high-energy cosmic rays do it randomly - is bad.   But a group of anthropologists say it isn't just modern agriculture feeding billions that is bad.

Apparently farming has been a health negative for mankind since it began.
Culture War - Recycled Cardboard Packaging Contaminates Food

Culture War - Recycled Cardboard Packaging Contaminates Food

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

Recycling is good, we are told, though in actuality government recycling has been nothing except an expensive waste, with landfills for recycled materials as big as landfills for regular garbage.

Now it turns out recycled packaging may be risking our health more directly.  Harmful mineral oils from the printing inks used on cardboard can migrate into food if recycled cardboard is used for food packaging. It may contaminate food even if the recycled cardboard is used for the corrugated card transport box that holds individual packs.
An Invisibility Cloak For Living Cells

An Invisibility Cloak For Living Cells

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

Using living cells as more efficient tools for delivering medicines  to diseased parts of the body has  gotten a little closer.   

In a new report, Dayang Wang and colleagues explain that the human body's efficiency in getting rid of foreign substances can also be an obstacle. Some foreign substances, such as viruses, are harmful and should obviously be removed, but the body also considers drugs and nanoparticles — meant to treat diseases and allow physicians to see cells and organs — to be foreign objects, and they are also quickly removed.
New Discovery In The Aging Process

New Discovery In The Aging Process

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

In 2009, Elizabeth. H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that replenishes the telomeres (see figure 1), DNA sequences at the endings of the chromosomes which appear to play a very important role in the aging process. This process, however, is far from being completely elucidated.

Figure 1: Human chromosomes, with the telomeres highlighted. (Source: National Institute of General Medical Sciences)

Electron Neutrinos From Muon Neutrinos!

Electron Neutrinos From Muon Neutrinos!

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

New results from the T2K collaboration have been presented at a KEK Physics Seminar today, and they are really interesting stuff. In a nutshell, six electron neutrino events have been seen by their far detector, illuminated by a pure and intense beam of muon neutrinos. The estimated backgrounds from non-oscillating-neutrino sources are estimated to amount to 1.5+-0.3 events, and the observed counts thus constitute a 2.5-standard-deviation effect, hopefully a first hint of direct detection of nu_mu -> nu_e oscillations.
Ethane: A Fingerprint For Life On Exoplanets

Ethane: A Fingerprint For Life On Exoplanets

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

Before discussing the conclusions of this paper released this week, I'll start with a pub-quiz style question. How much of Earth's atmosphere has not been made by living things?

The answer is: less than 1%, which is mostly argon. The overwhelming majority is biogenic; the nitrogen is a product of denitrifying bacteria, the oxygen from plants, and the inconspicuous CO2 is produced by everything, but especially animals.
A Live View of Unconsciousness

A Live View of Unconsciousness

Jun 15 2011 | comment(s)

It's difficult to know what you are thinking -- or what is happening in your own brain -- as you loose consciousness. There are many instances where this loss might happen, including getting whacked up side the head, inhaling a large volume of non-medically-inspired drugs, or, to the preference of many, falling into a deep sleep during anesthesia before an invasive operation.