7,000,000,000

7 billion. Billion, with a 'B'. That is the world's population as of this morning according to UN estimates. Some quick math shows that only 1.48x10^-6% of the world likes our Facebook fan page. Damn Shame.

Happy Birthday, Benson!

During a graduate student lunch with Virgina Zakian that I was in attendance, she was asked, "What is the best advice you could give a graduate student?" Her response?

GET A DOG

I fancy myself a dog guy, and would even be willing to debate friend of the blog Jerry Coyne on the "Cat vs. Dog" issue (full disclosure I do have a cat, Cooper, who I swear steals things from my wife and I for parts to make some sort of death machine). I have taken Virgina's advice, as have most of my colleagues, and am a proud Papa to two pups, Bruiser and Benson. Today is the latter's second birthday. Benson is a Golden Retriever who loves going to the dog park, laying on the couch and getting uncomfortably close to your face. I can't wait everyday to go home and be greeted by he and Bru. They make my life a little easier and for that I will be forever grateful. I love all my kiddos, and want to send special love to Benny on his second birthday!! See pics after the jump and I promise more sciencey stuff later today...

Charming snakes

Snakes are AWESOME.  And most people don't know it, or don't care.  After all, a substantial amount of human beings are scared of snakes, as indicated by the fact that they are used as Halloween decorations....Anyway, snakes have and continue to contribute great things to experimental and therapeutic medicine. A study published in Science this week reports potential heart benefits derived from snake blood, that is, blood taken from a snake that just had a huge meal.  The study reports that after a snake indulges in a meal much larger than its own body, several physiological changes take place.  Most notably in this study, its metabolic rate increases forty-fold and its heart doubles in size, presumably to effectively pump blood and oxygen to it's tissues.  Additionally, the level of fatty acids (a main component of oils and fats) spikes to 50 times normal levels post feast. 

What a fatty

 The research crew at University of Colorado, Boulder found that a combination of these fatty acids produce a beneficial enlargement of the heart.  So, to test the apparent beneficial effects of snake blood on mammals, the research team injected mice with python blood plasma, or a synthesized version of their findings.  The mice showed increased growth in the cardiac ventricular myocytes (heart muscle cells)-without any negative effects typically seen in cardiac hypertrophy...i.e...fibrosis.  This is of particular interest, in that, often times, hypertrophy of the heart is a BAD thing, usually indicative of a heart that is not efficiently working anymore (heart failure).  However, scientists hope that a snake-derived therapeutic intervention for healthy heart growth could help those with heart problems.

To find out more great things snakes have contributed to the wonderful world of science, hit the jump.

Mammalian Evolution, revisited

So our last podcast, the one that we recorded in Dustin's bathroom, ran into a bit of snag when we started talking about the evolution of mammals.  We tried to quickly come to an answer, but Wikipedia left us with more questions than answers.  Do you know why?  It's because the hottest, most current research on mammalian evolution is not titled "This is how we think mammals evolved".  No, it's now come to "Impacts of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution and KPg Extinction on Mammal Diversification".  Yeah, that would've been my next Google search string, too.

So to what new scientific breakthrough does the above title refer?  A multi-discipline, multi-establishment team of scientists have restructured the mammalian evolutionary tree in a way that hasn't been done before.  Using molecular data, like the similarities and differences in the genes and proteins that are shared among all mammals, Meredith and colleagues have been able to resolve a fairly complete evolutionary tree based on the most rigid level of classification: the family.

Think "Kings Play Chess on Fat Guys Stomach" (feel free to comment with your own mnemonic for taxonomy).  The family level lies just above genus, and it's one level down from Order, which is where the previously most comprehensive tree was constructed.  What does that mean?  The people who love doing this stuff are getting better at it; which is awesome.

See the tree of (mammal) life

Rabies And The Zombie Apocalypse

I could explain in further detail, but I feel like this Table does a decent job:

         Table 1: Characteristics of Rabies and Zombies

Some science love

The Daily Show was science HEAVY last night and it was great!

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

PODCAST EPISODE 16: The Pregnancy Podcast

Just in time for Halloween, we discuss the scariest thing to a fella in his 20s: pregnancy! All professionalism and restraint we showed during the Jerry Coyne podcast is joyfully out of our system as we discuss artificial shark wombs, Junior come true, and how live borne animals may have evolved.

We have all things buns in ovens by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes, from our external site, download or embedded below.

Case of mistaken Identity

I wish I could claim to have photoshopped this, alas its a real pic hanging in The University of Kentucky Hospital

Word from Zimbabwe comes a drunken tale so tragic it makes Hank Williams' ghost weep with sorrow. Moyo, 28, was arrested in the town of Zvishavane (pronounced Las Vegas) after what can only be described as one Helluva one night stand. Moyo was awoken Sunday morning, after paying $25 dollars the night before for a young ladies 'service'. Moyo was shocked to find out he had actually had relations with... A Donkey. Being of the genotype XY, Moyo did what every warm blooded man would do, COMPLETELY PLAY IT OFF as if something strange and magical had happened during the night.

"I think I am also a donkey. I do not know what happened when I left the bar, but I am seriously in love with (the) donkey,"

Seems legit to me. Ahhh True Love......

[H/T The Telegraph]

Better Know Your Unit: The Kilogram

kg

KG (115 kg)

Mass! One of the finest properties of matter.

You might say, "Cliff. Everyone knows La Système international d'unités, also know as the SI by you non-francophone plebeians, specifies the kilogram as the standard unit of measure for mass. Also, this is easily the most inane topic for a series of posts." To which my reply, as it almost inevitably is to any criticism, would be gentle weeping.


You might take it further: "A kilogram is clearly defined as the mass of a cubic decimeter of water at 4°. That's a liter. You're a failure of a blogger." 


Then I would taste proverbial blood. The tears in my eyes would be replaced with a fiery rage. I have you right where I want you. 

Because you were technically correct. IF IT'S THE YEAR 1795. 

My passionate rebuke is after the jump. Fall into the fascinating world of Units of Measure Intrigue:

Global Warming: Real

I know everyone and their mom has written about this over the past few days, but I find it somewhat hilarious so I am going to throw my two cents into the pile as well. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project will soon publish their findings which analyzed the surface temperature of the Earth from available data, and make their findings available to the public. The BEST project leader told The Guardian:

"There will be no spin, whatever we find. We are doing this because it is the most important project in the world today. Nothing else comes close."

 In other words: We're going to let good science rule the project, because should any data be faked OR hidden because it isn't what is best for our bottom line is NOT in the best interest of humanity or science in general.

About Human And Canine Interaction

It’s been known for quite some time now that domestic dogs are the descendents of wolves: what’s still up in the air is why the transition actually occurred.

This wolf wants you to come closer.  No, not because that would be all the better to eat you.  He wants you to come closer because he’s a photomosaic— this wolf picture is made of many smaller pictures of domestic dogs.  “Wow, did you design it that way because it’s symbolic of the common wolf ancestry shared by the diverse breeds of domestic canines?”  Why yes, thanks for asking.

The general consensus is that at least 14,000 years ago human influence played a role in catalyzing the process, but what exact role this may have been is still up for debate.  One theory is that humans may have selected for tamer animals since these were favored because they were less aggressive and/or better at begging for food.  Another theory, which is advocated by biologist Dr. Raymond Coppinger, is that animals that were able to scavenge the food discarded as waste were better able to fill a niche that allowed for their selection.  These scavenging canines would have needed to have a shorter flight distance and be less likely to flee from humans overall, since this discarded food would be near human settlements.  As generations progressed, the wolves (Canis lupus) would have become more and more tame, and eventually would have become closer to what we recognize today as a domesticated dog (Canis familiaris).  It’s been postulated that without being able to tame wolves, humans would not have been nearly as successful of a species as we have been.  Dogs have allowed us as a species, to be able to endure harsh arctic climates, better protect our territory, and utilize them for hunting and herding, among other things.  

Great Moments in Health "Tips"

This is from a Dark Horse comic Devil Chef that debuted in 1994, so is certainly mislabeled as a "FAIL." That's a horrible website. However, this is a funny picture, from writer/artist Jack Pollack.

There are indeed many benefits to dietary fiber and celery is "low in Saturated Fat, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Pantothenic Acid, Calcium, Magnesium and Phosphorus, and a very good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Folate, Potassium and Manganese."

Let's see those... pearly whites?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENNY BOY!

I'm not sure if yesterday was his B-Day. I wasn't THERE

Yesterday everyone's favorite, lovable con-man turned 60 years old.  That means, as @stopcreationism pointed out, Ken Ham has been alive to see 1% of Earth's entire history. Congrats Ken, here's to another 1%.

Remember how much dumber (or smarter) you were in high school?

Well, a recent letter published to Nature outlining a long-term study on how changes in brain structure during adolescence might affect intelligence sheds light on why you shouldn't base a teen's potential on how smart they are at the moment.

Yeah, this teen must've done something stupid, but then he grew up...to become Bill Gates.

The study involved 33 individuals, first tested between the ages of 12 and 16 and then later between the ages of 15 and 20, whose intellectual abilities ran the entire spectrum (the range of IQs was between 77 and 135 for the first test and 87 to 143 for the second).  The subjects didn't know they would be tested again after so many years, which also minimizes any potential bias.  The data was collected by using MRI scans while the subjects were presented with certain tasks that were either verbal skill-based or performance-based (picture matching) and using age appropriate IQ tests.  This study is very different from others, because the authors were able to eliminate individual variance by using the same subjects and because they were able to look at specific brain regions that are associated with specific challenges.

Hit the Jump to see the Data

Thar be strange beasties in these waters!

What the... Holy ocular deformities Batman!

The one-eyed specimen to the left is a Dusky shark (Carcharhinus obscurus) fetus displaying  a rare congenital eye disorder known as cyclopia.  Cyclopia is seen in a variety of other animals, included humans (not going to flash any pictures of that... your welcome) resulting in a form of holoprosencephaly.  A mishap in embyronic development caused by the failure of the forebrain to divide into distinct lobes, resulting in a single ocular orbit on the front of the head.  Along with a other brain malformations, embryos usually do not make it outside the womb, which is why you don't see very many free ranging cyclops... (sigh) Homer you liar.  Congenital causes of cyclopia are not well understood, however their are known external sources.

One aspect of cyclopia I'm more familiar with comes from external compounds that can disrupt development.  Compounds known as tetratogens.  One particular tetratogen, cyclopamine, (if its not obvious from the name) is known to induce cyclopia by directly altering the hedgehog signaling pathway.  This steroidal alkaloid (cholesterol like) compound occurs naturally in corn lilies (Veratrum californicum) native to the southwestern US, which are commonly mistaken for a group of medicinal flowers called hellebores.  Upon Ingestion of corn lilies by a pregnant mother, cycolpamine acts as an antagonist, which inhibits embryonic sonic hedgehog (shh) signaling by disrupting its receptor, smoothened (smo).  The result is a failure of ssh to induce the proper tissues to develop into the normal optic and brain structures, i.e cyclopia.  Interestingly, it was discovered when high numbers of lambs were born with a variety of malformations and cyclopia.  Upon further investigation it was found that pregnant ewes were in fact grazing on V. californicum.  Researchers  later isolated two steroidal alkaloids from the local flora. 

One of these is not like the other..

So, back to our little fishy.  This guy/girl actually (~56cm long) was pulled out a pregnant Dusky caught in a fisherman's net in the Gulf of California.  In a bizarre twist of 'strange shit you find' on the Internet, biologist Felipe Galván-Magaña was granted permission via Facebook by the fishermen to examine our cycloptic friend.  His conclusion was congenital cycolpia.  To the right is another picture with his/her sharky siblings.  




Science sheds light on another phenomenon...

Cheers,

[Via The Scientist & National Geographic]

The Wacky Weed

Cheech and Chong at the breakfast table.

Cheech and Chong are getting pretty fired up today.  In a paper published in Genome Biology, found here, a group of scientists have shed some light on the "mind-altering" capability of Cannabis sativa, or marijuana, compared to its lamer brother hemp.  C. sativa has been cultivated throughout history as a source for food, oil, fiber and medicine, and selective breeding has produced cannabis plants for specific uses, including high-potency marijuana strains and hemp cultivars for seed and fiber production.  Until now, the molecular biology underlying cannabinoid synthesis and phenotypic differnces between different forms of the same plant has been largely unexplored.

A collaborative effort from a group of Canadian scientists have published a 534 Mbp haploid draft genome, as well as a transcriptome of 30,000 genes.  A comparison of the draft genome between that of Purple Kush marijuana strain, with genes in the cannabinoid biosynthetic pathway in hemp strains (Finola) did not point to any variants likely to result in a functional difference in the production of 9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active compound that gives marijuana it's "high".  However, a comparison of the transcriptomes between the two revealed that the replacement of 9-tetrahydracannabinolic acid synthase in Purple Kush with cannabidiolic acid synthase in Finola provides an explanation for the production of THC in marijuana but not hemp.  While the transcripts for the THCA synthase were abundant in marijuana, they were barely detectable in hemp. Similarly, an enzyme that removes a precursor from the THCA synthase pathway was highly expressed in hemp, but not detectable in marijuana.

Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.  The implications of this research are far reaching, with the creation of various strains using marker-assisted breeding, etc.  The end of the article gets rather hypothetical, raising an argument of whether or not hemp got 'high', or marijuana came 'down' in terms of evolutionary history.  Seems like a nice conversation to have over a smoke.

Breaking News: T. Rex ate a lot

News Daily has a write-up from a new paper published in PLoS ONE detailing new evidence of T. Rex growth rates. The study shows that Sue, the largest known full Rex skeleton would have weighed in at 9 tons, a full 30% more than previously thought. The new data also points out Tyrannosaurs were likely ravenous eaters during their teen years --something I can relate with-- gaining upwards of 11 pounds a day during this time. The feats of Adam Richman are not as impressive now, are they?

Einstein Wins Again

Smug jerk.

Einstein always said faster-than-light speed travel was impossible.

Recently, neutrinos were clocked as going 64 nanoseconds faster. Understandably, this made everyone flip their damn lids.


The velocity of the neutrinos, within earth's atmosphere, was measured using GPS satellites higher in the atmosphere. The earth's rotation and gravitational field has known to cause time dilation, such as slowing down atomic clocks carried in high flying planes.

Calculating out the effect of the difference between the satellites and the neutrinos comes out to almost... 60 nanoseconds.

Physics teachers everywhere are mourning how they won't actually travel faster than the speed of light on their frictionless train cars, used in every example ever.

Paleolithic Diet, revisted.

If there is one thing we love here at the Evolving Scientist, it's this. If there are two things we love, it would be that and shameless self-promotion in order to win the NESCent Blog contest. If there are THREE things we love, it would be dancing kid, being shameless and food. We spoke of Poo Burgers and even recorded a food podcast, add on top of that our weekly team building lunches and we're a blog completely enamored with grub. A recent report in Science by Ungar and Sponheimer looks at what we here at the blog would have been chowing down on 2.4 million years ago. Much of what we believe our early ancestors feed upon comes from bone morphology, the study of their early tools and food sources known to be available to them millions of years ago. This leads scientists to believe that early diets mainly consisted of fleshy fruits and leaves, a diet similar to present day Chimps. As we evolved, our ancestors (Australopithecus, Paranthropus) teeth became more enameled and the jaw became stronger, suggesting a shift from fleshy fruits to a tougher diet of nuts and roots(this guy thanks them). Early members of our own genus had tool making abilities which open up a much wider variety diet, because early Homos had less enamel and smaller teeth, than those of their predecessors leading most to believe the food was processed before consumption. Ungar and Sponheimer wanted to look past what morphology and archeology alone can tell us, which is what a populations diet may have been, they wanted to know what an individual within a population ate.

Google Maps image of your teeth

How do you open up the stomach of a skeleton? You look at the dental microwear and stable light isotopes of their teeth. The dental microwear shows consistent patterning on the teeth dependent upon diet, a deep pit equates to a harder food diet like nuts whereas long parallel striations show signs of sheering meat or leaves. The dental microwear only measures a short period of time in an individuals life, each meal creates a new pattern of wear so the snapshot in time revealed is 'the last supper' or the meals that were consumed in the days before death. This greatly narrows down to the types of meals consumed and eliminates some of the variation that looking at morphology alone creates. Stable isotopes found in food become apart of you, and body tissue takes on a similar chemical composition of the food. Carbon isotope measurement can give great insights into the types of plants consumed by an individual or the plant life consumed by a predator's prey.

SO what did this brand new way of looking into the past show? Diversity, lots and lots of diversity. The studies showed that there was no steadfast diet that our primate ancestors stuck to. It appears that the assumption that a strong jaw and a more enameled tooth did not mean that the individual only ate nuts and roots because individuals show high variability in carbon isotopes and microware. The authors state that the belief of the morphology evolving to eat hard food alone is probably too simplistic and also say that there seems to be a high geographic influence on type of food consumed between similar taxa.

The two techniques mentioned do offer new insights and ideas as to the evolution of early hominids and what role food may have played. Anyway, it's late and I am hungry. I hope nothing terrible happens to me in the coming days, lest my 'last supper' microwear read corndog.

Clinically proven to relieve....cancer?

An aspirin a day keeps the cancer away?

A review published in the British Journal of Cancer this year indicates that aspirin, the common nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat minor aches and pains, may be used to treat or prevent certain cancers.  Aspirin, or acetylsalicylic acid, inhibits the enzyme cyclooxygenase (Cox), which converts arachidonic acid to prostaglandin H2, which in turn produces biologically active prostaglandins which influence a wide array of physiological and pathophysiological conditions.  The inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis is considered the predominate mechanisms by which NSAIDs act as anti-inflammatory agents, however, it is unclear whether the anti-cancer properties of these agents can be solely attributed to Cox inhibition.  Previous studies have shown that higher concentrations of prostaglandins are found in cancers compared with surrounding normal tissues, which led investigators to hypothesize that prostaglandins may accelerate cancer growth.  Additionally, a study published in 2007, found here, showed that Cox-2 (one of the Cox isoforms) overexpression coincides with a number of different malignancies, and it is thought that Cox-2 prostaglandins promote tumorigenesis by inhibiting apoptosis (cell death).  This was supported by studies, here and here, showing mice deficient in Cox-1 or Cox-2 showed reduced tumorigenesis.

There is increasing epidemiological evidence that regular aspirin use is associated with a decreased incidence of developing cancer.  However, the half-life of aspirin in the human body is only 15-20 min; soooo, the clinical observations that once-daily administration of aspirin appears to have an anti-cancer effect is very intriguing.  Therefore, aspirin continues to be evaluated in vitro and in pre-clinical models to help elucidate mechanisms involved in carcinogenesis, with much to still be uncovered.  Nevertheless, this is still exciting research, and this would be BY FAR, the least expensive cancer therapy drug to date!  And with the well established cardio-protective effects of aspirin, a dual role is of particular interest to the health and well-being of aging adults.

I "heart" aspirin....and so does my heart.

Before you run to the shelves of your local pharmacy to get your "anti-cancer-on", consult your physician first.  Remember, all drugs are bad....just some have good side effects.

PODCAST EPISODE 15: Science & Religion featuring Dr. Jerry Coyne

On Wednesday, famed science advocate and atheist Dr. Jerry Coyne from University of Chicago went up against Georgetown University's theologian and religious accommodationist Dr. John Haught discussing "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?" as the finale to the University of Kentucky's Gaines Center for the Humanities Bale Boone Symposium. We asked Dr. Coyne to join us the next day on our podcast, and he graciously accepted. Dr. Haught did suggest he should get out more, after all.

The discourse was videotaped, and hopefully will be available soon. I'll keep an eye to the inter-tubes for it and keep ya'll posted. It was enormously entertaining. Dr. Coyne's wrote about his thoughts afterwards.
 
Join us for the little-over-an-hour discussion. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, snatch it from our external site, download direct, or stream it below:

Thanks to Dr. Coyne for loaning us his soothing voice! If the whole academia and science advocacy thing doesn't continue working out, he could easily record audiobooks of children's bedtime stories.

[Why Evolution is True by Dr. Jerry Coyne, book and website]

Great Moments in Particularly Abstract Abstracts

Can apparent superluminal neutrino speeds be explained as a quantum weak measurement?“, M.V. Berry, N. Brunner, S. Popescu and P. Shukla, arXiv:1110.2832 (October 2011), a comment on the super-photon speed neutrinos that are discussed everywhere these days. This is the well-deserved winner of an Ig Nobel prize!

[More on the Ig Nobel prizes]

The Black Death Genome

Here's an idea: Go into London, dig up some 650 year old bodies, pull the teeth from their skulls and sequence the DNA that is collected. Sounds batty, right? What if I added on top of that the reason you're doing this is to sequence the genome of one of the most prolific killers of mankind? This may sound like the worst idea someone could ever have, but it's exactly what a group of researchers did, and their findings were published in Nature this week. Bos et al. were given access to Black

The Foil on Season Seven of Dexter.

Death burial grounds of East Smithfield to collect the DNA of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium believed to cause the plague. The plague was responsible for the deaths of half of Europe's entire population in a mere seven years beginning in 1346, which was later attributed to the bacterium after a similar outbreak in China during the 19th century. There is some controversy as to whether Y. pestis is the causal agent of the disease because modern epidemics are not nearly as severe. Bos and the team wanted to know if there were any genetic differences between the Black Death Y. pestis and the modern day version that could account for the differences in epidemiological trends.
Hit the Jump for more and a nice video!

Cue-up Kernkraft 400: Jerry Coyne, Lex, KY, TONIGHT!

After last week's Dawkins talk, the Lexington-area is again treated with some bold science advocacy in the form of Jerry Coyne. Coyne will have a debate with Georgetown University religion professor John Haught on the topic titled "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?"

Coyne's been hitting the speed bag this morning in preparation. Schedule permitting, we hope to have him on our podcast this week to talk with us. Coyne told us last night he hopes to "give'em a show!"

Jiffin and I get our third stamp tonight for our Boone Symposium Merit Badge, hope to see ya'll there!

Jerry Coyne and John Haught "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?"
Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 6:00 pm 
Center Theatre
UK Student Center
University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506

MILD BREAKING BAD SPOILER: Lily-of-the-Valley, and Ohmigaww did ya'll see that!?

Do you watch, or plan to watch, Breaking Bad? If so, reading this post may act as a mild spoiler to the later half of Season 4. I'm pretty careful to steer clear of the specifics.

Does this stamp look familiar to you? Then you must have a great aunt Aurelia whom writes you from her goat farm in Eastern Europe. OR you watched Season 4 of Breaking Bad and were haunted by a similar image.

A chemical, ricin, made from castor beans, acts as a minor plot device numerous times in the series (we briefly discussed it on our Breaking Bad/drugs podcast). The material, active ingredient being a protein, is potent in tiny amounts and the writers of the show claim the exposed exhibit flu-like symptoms before dying. In real life, the symptoms upon ingestion would more specifically mimic a "stomach flu," with serious gastrointestinal disturbances, rather than the body aches and runny nose type symptoms I tend to consider "flu-like." Ricin functions by entering the cell and preventing the ribosomal RNA from performing its functions in the production of proteins. (Often people think proteins are the only substances that "perform work" in the cell, while in fact some RNAs have "ribozyme" functions that have them operating in a manner similar to the more famous protein enzymes)

Now! For the hip, or the give-a-shit less, science-first folks, I got the rest on the flip side:

PODCAST EPISODE 14: Dawkins Debriefed

Everyone but me went to see heathen overlord Richard Dawkins last week, and we discuss this in depth.

Subscribe on iTunes, download, external site, or embedded below:

The Times They Are A-Changin'

Yeah, I thought this was Xbox live activity also.....

Now an ongoing debate, some scientist say that our planet has crossed into another geological boundary, a transformation that will leave its own signature stripe in rocks, and is all OUR fault!  An article in Science last week reviews the current Epoch debate; a group of influential geologists, scientists, ecologists and biologists argue that humans have changed the planet significantly, and Earth is now entering a new phase of geological time, called the Anthropocene, or "Age of Man."  Humanity, they content, can be considered a "geophysical force", having a impact on par with super-volcanoes, asteriod impacts or tectonic shifts that led to the massive glaciation of the Ordovician epoch.  

Hit the jump to find out more!

Live tweets from Dawkins Talk

Follow @EvolveScientist for live tweets from the Richard Dawkins talk!!! I promise to be as humorous and on fire as ever.

Doodles for Science! Drawing and Science Education

Most scientists will tell you that being able to represent what you know is as equally important as both writing and speaking (and to stop Cliff of making fun of you).  Being able to generate accurate and effective representations from meaningful patterns in data and knowing how new data fit into your representation is one thing, but breaking it down into something easily explained, into nice bite-sized chunks, all show that you understand just what the heck your talking about.  Put another way, showing expertise.

Two College students (left to right) showing the function of venous valves.  One on the right... Mr. Justin says, "A+!"

So let’s take it further.  In terms of Science Education, should students also be challenged to explain science concepts through drawing?  Does development of student representation skills aid in conceptual science learning or scientific thinking?  The quick answer, yes.  Expanding further, how might the teachers benefit?  

Recently, I came across a review in Science in which a trio of researchers suggested that emerging research supports that the use and development of student drawing can impact both science learning and teachers assessment in learning.  I've also read literature through an education research class that acknowledges these and other findings in reference to how people learn science and math. 

Hit the jump for science doodles!

Great Moments in Science Fair History

Why you hatin' on SPAM?

Who says our Educational System is flawed?  I'm just glad this issue got straightened out.  Hellz yeah.....

The 2011 Nobel Prize for Chemistry goes to...

...Daniel Shechtman! Shechtman, 70, a professor of materials science at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won the prize solo this morning for "the discovery of quasicrystals” according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. Quasicrystals are unique in that they create structural forms that while ordered, are not periodic, in other words the structure of the crystal has a pattern, but it never repeats. The classic crystalline structures that we think of contain only 2, 3, 4, and 6-fold rotational symmetries while quasicrystals contain 5, 12, 8, and more folds that have been discovered since Shechtman's original discovery in 1982. Shechtman's work had been met with high skepticism from the outset because should he be right- and he was- it would change the way chemist had thought about atom packing.

According to the Nobel Committee, Shechtman's work may lead to better diesel engines, LED lights and most importantly BETTER FRYING PANS! Getcha bacon ready, BABY!

Congrats to Dan.

Champagne, Supernova! Your 2011 Physics Nobel Prize

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to (½) American Saul Perlmutter, and (¼) American-Australian Brian Schmidt and (¼) American Adam Riess.The Perlmutter and Schmidt-Riess teams discovered independently that supernovae more distant in the universe emitted energy that was weaker than expected, suggesting that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. What could cause this horrifying acceleration? Why only the most common form of mass or energy in the universe, accounting for 73% of everything, dark energy. Fearful that perhaps their equipment was just misunderestimating the light emitted from these Ia supernovae, the two teams were pleased to find their independent findings in accordance.

Scientists still really don't know what dark energy actually is, which is what makes this particular award so exciting. These gentlemen are being recognized for discovering something of which we still know very little about, but we know it's real. And that it's scary. The Perlmutter and Schmidt-Riess discovery, predicts "if the expansion will continue to speed up the Universe will end in ice."

Similar to Einstein and countless others, the discovery of dark energy turned our understanding of the universe on its head.There isn't anything that's as pure "science" as that. Enjoy giving away your shared $1.5 million. 

I got the crappy Oasis song I used in the title for you after the jump while you wait for Bad Astronomy's post on this. UPDATE: Here it is

Feelin' Groovy

Funky fungus.  Magic mushrooms dude!

A study published this week in the Journal of Psychopharmacology reports that “magic mushrooms” may produce lasting, positive changes in personality.  People who took the boomers showed increases in the key dimension of openness- being amenable to new ideas, experiences and perspectives.

This study is an analysis of the results from two previous trials published in 2006 and 2011.  The studies showed that lab administered psilocybin, the active drug in magic mushrooms, was linked to long-lasting improvements in study participant’s relationships, mood and general well being, as being reported by study participants and corroborated by family members and friends.  The study reports that people who had a “complete mystical experience” during their psilocybin trip had scored significantly higher on measures of “openness” more than a year afterward. 

Hippies...feeling pretty  "open".

The potential benefit of hallucinogens has been a long-time debate in the medical field, with studies reporting positive effects in people with severe cases of schizophrenia and social anxiety.  However, since our government has spent countless of billions of dollars on the war on drugs, don’t look for psilocybin to be at pharmacy near you anytime soon.

I personally love a good boom trip…but this is not to say that I recommend chewing on the feces-born fungus.  Psilocybin can be dangerous, it’s illegal, and tastes like sh*t.  Better just stick to being close-minded.  

Make love, not war!

More Lexington-Area Evolution Goings-on: Jerry Coyne's Triumphant Return!

Poster I ripped off of weit.com, since it is nigh impossible to find on UK's wack website. Click to greatly embiggen

Less than a week after Richard Dawkins hits up central Kentucky, Dr. Jerry Coyne makes his 2nd annual October visit to Lexington (the Biology department graduate students invited him here last year, coincidentally at the same time) to have a debate with Georgetown University religion professor John Haught on the topic titled "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?" Coyne doesn't love the coverage it's getting from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

I'm refraining from comment here since as a team-blog, we tend not to discuss religion. Just letting the Lexington-Area readers something that may be of interest to them, especially when details are so scant so far on the UK websites. The other two evenings of lectures look great, too. I'll pop on a beret and haunt that scene.

Afterward, you are cordially invited to join me for my round table discussion on "The Peter King Symposium Presents: Colons in Scholarly Titles: Why are They Always There?"

Jerry Coyne and John Haught "Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?"
Wednesday, October 12, 2011, 6:00 pm 
Center Theatre
UK Student Center
University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506

Bringin' out the B team: The Ig Nobels 2011!

As scientific awards go, the Nobel might be the cream of the crop...for some.  But, as everyone knows, Americans do things their own way.  In that vein, the folks at the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) organized the Ig Nobel Prize (a play-on-words of ignoble, of course) for research "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced".  And the winners of the 2011 Ig Nobel in Medicine are...drumroll please....

From Left to Right:  R. Pietrzak, R. Feldman, Peter Snyder, Luk Warlop, Mirjam Tuk
Not Pictured:  the winners whose pictures were not readily available via cursory Google search.

So, what did this crackpot team of "laureates" do?  They published a fascinating body of work investigating decision-making abilities while under the pressure of...

Urination.  YEA!!

The papers, here and here basically conclude that people that need to go pee pee can make good or bad decisions.  

The jokes here are all in good fun:  The studies were well done, and I found the papers really fun reading.

Of course there are other Ig Nobel Laureates for the same categories as celebrated by the Nobel Prize.  Check out their blog for video, winners lists, and a lot more hilarity than I'm capable of producing on a Monday.  Evening.  In the Lab.

Cheers to the under-celebrated.

And the Survey Says:

Former (sorry, Richard Karn-ivores, that says FORMER) "Family Feud" host Richard Dawson rolls into town on his barn-storming, East Coast tour that's sure to have you kissing strangers on the lips!

I. misread. This is embarrassing. Let's try this again.

And the Skeptic Says:

The much more handsome UK (not University of Kentucky) Cover

Godless heathen and evolution supporter Richard DAWKINS comes to Richmond, KY at Eastern Kentucky University this week in support of his new book and iPad app, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True, to be released stateside tomorrow! No word if he'll give you a kiss or wear smokey sunglasses and a pastel suit. The UK Biology Dept. will be rolling rather deep for this, including many of your favorite Lexington science bloggers.

Richard Dawkins: "The Magic of Reality"
Thursday, October 6, 2011, 7:30 pm
Brock Auditorium
Coates Administration Building
Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond KY,  40475

Maybe next year...

The 2011 Nobel Prize for Medicine was announced this morning, and congratulations to (drum-roll)  Bruce Beutler, Jules Hoffmann and Ralph Steinman for their work on how the body fights disease. Beutler, an American and French biologist Hoffmann's work have given insight into how the immune system first responds to attack.  Beutler was the first to isolate the mouse tumor necrosis factor-alpha and show it's inflammatory potential. This allowed him to create a recombinant molecule fusing the binding domain of TNF and the heavy chain of an immunoglobulin protein to force receptor dimerization.

Bruce Beutler

This process was used to create the drug Etanercept for treating rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and other forms of inflammation. Beutler shares a fourth of this years award with Jules Hoffmann, whose work in the mid-90's showed that the Toll receptors mediate the immune defense. Their work pioneered thinking that immunity starts at the cellular level, and that groups of receptors are essential for the functions of the immune system.

Jules Hoffmann Photo: Mosimann for Balzan

Hoffmann and Beutler share the award with Ralph Steinman a biologist at Rockefeller University, who sadly, passed away on Friday, September 30th. Steinman discovered the immune system's sentinel dendritic cells and demonstrated how those cells could be used to fight infections. Steinman's work showed how the body fights pathogens with a form of adaptive immunity, or how the body begins to clear pathogens. Nobel Prizes are not typically given posthumously, and the Nobel Committee claims it was unaware of Steinman's untimely passing.

Ralph Steinman (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Again, congratulations to each of the winners for this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine. Check back tomorrow when we pat the back of the winner for Physics.

***UPDATE: The Nobel Committee has stuck by their decision to award Steinman the prize, even though their rules disallow awards being given posthumously. Rockefeller made news of his death public this morning, around the same time as the Nobel announcement. The committee has claimed it was unaware of Steinman's passing. 

Thinking 4th Dimensionally

Einstein being all "genius-y"

A European physics collaboration announced on September 23, 2011 that it clocked a neutrino moving 60 nanoseconds (ns: 1 billionth of a second) faster than the speed of light.  Faster…than the current rules of physics would allow.  According to Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, nothing will ever travel as fast, or faster than the speed of light (c, ~299,792,458 meters/second, or 186,262 miles/second), due to mass constraints.  In other words, when objects approach the speed of light, they become infinitely massive, and therefore will never reach the ultimate speed. 

An artist depiction of the "undoing" of physics as we know it.

Using a particle detector called the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus, or OPERA, the speed of neutrino particles was measured from its launching at CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland to its arrival at the underground facility of Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory.  According to the report, the particle traversed the 454 mile stretch 60ns faster than the speed of light, with an error calculated to be only 10ns, making the difference statistically significant. 

So, if this were indeed true, the world of physics, and the physical world that we know it, would forever change.  Defying the theory of relativity could make time travel possible.

If I could go back in time, I would prevent Back to the Future Part II from being made.

However, several physicists, including 2006 Noble Prize winner George Smoot III, have expressed doubts.  After all, Einstein’s theories have been challenged many times before, and never overturned.  Many notable physicists claim that the results are incorrect (likely due to unseen error) and that Einstein’s theory of special relativity will remain uncontested.  Meanwhile, Fermilab, a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory in Chicago, is set to test the new findings which defy physics and hint at the possibility of time travel.

Since this announcement, I have read and seen several articles with the header “Was Einstein wrong?”.  Hold yo damn horses, ladies and gents.  How soon we forget just how awesome Albert really was.  But talking up Einstein is for another time….however I urge you to use caution before diving head first into this latest announcement.  Let’s see if it can be replicated.