Les Jones

Michael Crichton on Science

Thursday, November 6th, 2008 | Quotes, Science | Permalink | No Comments |

“Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible. In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends. That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended.”
 – Michael Crichton, 1942-2008

This story is worthless without video

Saturday, October 18th, 2008 | Science | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Slashdot - “Stayin Alive” Helps You Stay Alive:

In a small study conducted at the University of Illinois medical school, doctors and students maintained close to the ideal number of chest compressions doing CPR while listening to the Bee Gees hit, “Stayin’ Alive.” At 103 beats per minute, the old disco song has almost the perfect rhythm to help keep accurate time while doing chest compressions. The study showed the song helped people who already know how to do CPR, and the results were promising enough to warrant larger, more definitive studies with real patients or untrained people. I wonder what intrinsic power is contained in “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?”

People are Noticing: Hurricane Predictions Useless

Saturday, May 31st, 2008 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

AP - Hurricane season outlooks of little use:

But most years, they have published his forecasts with little or no commentary on his overall record - or even analysis of how he’d fared the season before. That is, until 2005.

That spring, Gray and Klotzbach forecast 15 named storms, eight of them hurricanes. Instead, there were a record 28 named storms in 2005, including 15 hurricanes - most notably Katrina. The following year, the team overestimated the storm activity. Instead of the predicted 17 storms and nine hurricanes, the final numbers that season were 10 and five.

Coincidentally, 2005 was also the year Xie and his students published a groundbreaking paper in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters.” In it, they suggested that the interplay of sea surface temperatures in the tropical North and South Atlantic, and not El Nino, was responsible for Florida’s disastrous 2004 season.

The following year, NC State felt confident enough to issue its forecast publicly. In a release, the university’s PR department would later crow that its “was the only national model to accurately forecast Atlantic hurricane activity” in 2006.

Unfortunately, NC State’s 2007 forecast was as off as anyone’s.

Things I Didn’t Know About Lyme Disease

Monday, February 11th, 2008 | Science | Permalink | 4 Comments |

A friend from Camp Montvale days writes:

Most of you are familiar with my husband Michael’s experience of the past few years with having an initial diagnosis ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), followed by three years of a very rapid decline. He was confined to a wheelchair, almost unable to feed himself, barely able to speak, and showing the beginning stages of respiratory difficulties. Through it all, Michael maintained to numerous doctors that he had been bitten by a tick shortly before becoming ill, and believed that he had an infection resulting from the bite. He was told by these doctors that he was in denial about ALS diagnosis and sent on his merry way to get on with the business of dying. Those of you who know Michael also know that bit of advice didn’t sit too well with him. So we continued to search for answers, and we finally found them with the help of a doctor in Philadelphia who diagnosed and treated Michael for Lyme Disease. Within a year of intensive IV antibiotic therapy he was breathing normally and having no trouble feeding himself. Within a year and a half he was walking with a cane. Within 2 years he was walking normally and to all outside observers appears completely normal (though he was left with a great deal of chronic pain as a souvenir).

She writes to tell her friends about a new documentary on Lyme disease and its mis-diagnosis:

While the popular perception of Lyme disease is of a trivial joint-related problem easily cured with a few weeks of antibiotics, our characters tell a radically different story. They are forced to live with confounding and debilitating symptoms for months to years, while searching for a diagnosis and effective treatment. As they visit specialist after specialist, so many are told that their problems are stress related or “all in their heads.” Most are misdiagnosed for years with incurable conditions such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, lupus, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s or ALS. And when these patients finally receive a Lyme diagnosis, they ask, What is going on? Why are front-line physicians so ignorant of classic Lyme symptoms and the true size of the epidemic? Why does it take the average Lyme patient more than 3 years and $60,000 to be diagnosed? Once diagnosed, why are many physicians and insurers refusing to provide sufferers with lifesaving treatment? And why are many of the physicians who do treat Lyme coming under fire with the threat of losing their medical licenses?

More Evidence that Thimerasol Not Linked to Autism

Friday, February 8th, 2008 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

AP via WBIR - Doctors: Climb in autism cases adds to evidence against vaccine link:

A new study finds that autism cases in California have continued to climb.This, even after a vaccine preservative containing mercury — blamed by some for the neurological disorder — was removed from routine childhood shots.

State health department researchers found that the autism rate in children rose continuously from 1995 to 2007. The preservative hasn’t been used in childhood vaccines since 2001, though it is used in some flu shots.

Doctors say the study adds to existing evidence against a link between exposure to the preservative (thimerosal) and the risk of autism. And they say the study should reassure parents that autism isn’t caused by vaccinations.

Ape or Monkey?

Saturday, December 8th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

Last night at dinner someone noted something that had totally escaped me. If it looks like a monkey/gorilla/ape and it has a tail, it’s a monkey. If it looks like a monkey/gorilla/ape and it doesn’t have a tail, it’s an ape (and that includes orangutans).

Wikipedia notes some edge cases like the Barbary Ape that isn’t a true ape, but the general rule seems pretty good: all monkeys have tails, though some tailless uh, dudes, aren’t necessarily apes.

Hurricane Forecasts Wrong Again

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

Forecasters underpredicted in 2005 (the year of Katrina) and overcompensated by overpredicting for two years in a row.

Anyone Watch “The Unit” Tuesday Night?

Thursday, November 1st, 2007 | Science | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Man, that guest star special agent had a hella bad case of cauliflower ear. The director tried to keep it out of the frame, with limited sucess.

Comparing his ear to other actors ears on the show made me realize something, though. Even regular ears look pretty weird. If they were any stranger looking we’d start having sex with them.

Until I looked up the Wikipedia entry for cauliflower ear I didn’t realize it came from injuries. I always thought it was genetic.

UPDATE: In comments people are telling me the guest star was pro fighter Randy Couture. I’m impressed. I thought the guy was a professional actor. I would never have guessed he was an athlete doing a turn as an actor.

Mistaken Scientific Consensus

Thursday, October 11th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

New York Times - Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus:

Meanwhile, there still wasn’t good evidence to warrant recommending a low-fat diet for all Americans, as the National Academy of Sciences noted in a report shortly after the U.S.D.A. guidelines were issued. But the report’s authors were promptly excoriated on Capitol Hill and in the news media for denying a danger that had already been proclaimed by the American Heart Association, the McGovern committee and the U.S.D.A.

The scientists, despite their impressive credentials, were accused of bias because some of them had done research financed by the food industry. And so the informational cascade morphed into what the economist Timur Kuran calls a reputational cascade, in which it becomes a career risk for dissidents to question the popular wisdom.

With skeptical scientists ostracized, the public debate and research agenda became dominated by the fat-is-bad school. Later the National Institutes of Health would hold a “consensus conference” that concluded there was “no doubt” that low-fat diets “will afford significant protection against coronary heart disease” for every American over the age of 2. The American Cancer Society and the surgeon general recommended a low-fat diet to prevent cancer.

But when the theories were tested in clinical trials, the evidence kept turning up negative. As Mr. Taubes notes, the most rigorous meta-analysis of the clinical trials of low-fat diets, published in 2001 by the Cochrane Collaboration, concluded that they had no significant effect on mortality.

Sounds similar to the climate change debate, doesn’t it? Except that right now temperatures are increasing, so the trend is supporting the consensus view. I know it’s beyond some people’s comprehension to think the trend won’t continue indefinitely, but it might not. Or it might continue indefinitely. I don’t know. If the temperatures dostart going back down, some people are going to have some fast talking to do.

Vaseline Glass Contains Uranium

Saturday, September 8th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

I’ve seen many vaseline glass pieces in antique stores, typically arranged in a display case with a blacklight that makes them glow green. I just discovered that vaseline glass glows because it contains uranium oxide, and is also known as uranium glass.

At the end of the 19th century, it was discovered that uranium glass with certain additional minerals could be tempered at high temperature to partially crystallise, changing from its normal transparent yellow or yellow-green with increasing opacity to, ultimately, opaque white. This material, technically a glass-ceramic, inspired the name “vaseline glass” due to its similar appearance to petroleum jelly. Today, this term is the preferred term for all varieties of uranium glass, especially in the United States.

Uranium glass was originally used widely in the production of tableware and other decorative household items, but has long since fallen out of general use, and is most likely to be found as marbles for use as novelties or in science experiments. Most other objects made with this glass are considered antiques or retro-era collectibles, although there has been a minor revival in art glassware.

Regular uranium glass fluoresces bright green under ultraviolet light due to the uranium content. Certain other varieties will glow other colors. Uranium glass is scarcely radioactive, although a great enough quantity will register on a sufficiently sensitive geiger counter above background radiation. The radioactivity of the glass is widely considered to be negligible and not harmful.

Hat tip to Scribal Terror, which has lots of unusual links. More vaseline glass information at Southern Belle.

The red Fiestaware produced from 1936 to 1943 also contained uranium oxide. The manufacturer stopped using uranium oxide, not because of safety concerns, but because the U.S. government commandeered all uranium supplies for use with the Manhattan Project. Production resumed in 1959, but was discontinued again in 1969 due to safety concerns.

Courtship Ritual of the Waved Albatross

Thursday, July 26th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

David from Ironic Sans and his new bride just got back from their honeymoon on the Galapagos Islands. You’ve got to see his video of a waved albatross courtship ritual.

Why have I never thought of going to the Galapagos? I’d love to go there.

Monster Pig

Saturday, May 26th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Via email from Mark O’Dell: Boy Bags Wild Hog Bigger Than ‘Hogzilla’.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Hogzilla is being made into a horror movie. But the sequel may be even bigger: Meet Monster Pig. An 11-year-old Alabama boy used a pistol to kill a wild hog his father says weighed a staggering 1,051 pounds and measured 9-feet-4 from the tip of its snout to the base of its tail. Think hams as big as car tires.

If the claims are accurate, Jamison Stone’s trophy boar would be bigger than Hogzilla, the famed wild hog that grew to seemingly mythical proportions after being killed in south Georgia in 2004.

It’s amazing to me that new animals of record size are still being found in an area as settled as the lower 48. It sort of gives me hope.

For gun folks, the two-tone “pinto” look of that gun - with its black receiver and barrel and silver cylinder and recoil compensator - immediately signalled that the revolver is almost certainly a Smith & Wesson, which has a long history of producing limited runs of pinto guns. From the size and the fact that it killed a half ton hog it has to be one of Smith & Wesson’s X frame revolvers, which would mean it’s chambered in either .500 Magnum or .460 Magnum. It may very well be the Performance Center 460XVR, which has the same silver recoil compensator on the end of the barrel.

That’s a limited run of 500 guns. After news of this gets out I have the feeling they’ll all get snapped up pretty quickly as “the gun that killed MonsterPig™.” Ya gotta love a revolver that’s so big it comes with swivels for a rifle sling. “Go ahead, pig. Make my day.”

- MonsterPig.com
- Snopes entry on Hogzilla

UPDATE: A commenter points to this Sports Illustrated article that says the gun was a “.50″ which would mean it’s the .500 Magnum.

Plant Those Easter Lilies

Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

We bought an Easter Lily for my mom tonight. While I was checking out the cashier mentioned that he always planted his, and they kept coming back. I didn’t know that you could plant Easter Lilies. Did you know that?

Here’s info on how to plant Easter Lilies from Hortchat.com. (And is it just me, or does Hortchat sound vaguely dirty?) They’re not hardy in all parts of the country, but Tennessee is apparently warm enough for them to overwinter.

Study: Delaying Umbilical Cord Cut Helps Babies

Monday, March 26th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

From Canada.com:

About 25 to 60 per cent of fetal blood is in the cord and placenta. Earlier research shows clamping the cord within the first five to 10 seconds of birth compared to waiting to clamp “results in a decrease to the neonate (newborn) of 20 to 40 ml of blood per kilogram of body weight, which would provide the equivalent of 30 to 35 mg of iron,” Hutton and her research partner Eman Hassan, at the University of B.C., write today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Delaying clamping could boost blood volumes in newborns by up to 30 per cent, bringing with it more iron.

Hat tip to Katie Allison-Granju.

Everything a Homeowner Needs to Know About Bradford Pear Trees

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

Expressed in a poem.

Effort More Important than Self-esteem?

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 | Science | Permalink | 1 Comment |

New York Magazine:

Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything potentially damaging to kids’ self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise.

Dweck and Blackwell’s work is part of a larger academic challenge to one of the self-esteem movement’s key tenets: that praise, self-esteem, and performance rise and fall together. From 1970 to 2000, there were over 15,000 scholarly articles written on self-esteem and its relationship to everything—from sex to career advancement. But results were often contradictory or inconclusive. So in 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science. Only 200 of those 15,000 studies met their rigorous standards.

New research shows much more positive results from praising a child’s efforts rather than their innate ability or smarts and emphasizing the role of effort in developing and improving ability.

Thanks to Marty for the link.

Link Between Obesity and Intestinal Flora

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 | Science | Permalink | 1 Comment |

“Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is also looking for factors that contribute to obesity. He’s been studying microbes that live in the gut, and has found that the types of bacteria found in the stomach vary between obese and lean mice. Not only that, but by transferring these bacteria into other mice, he can influence whether they’ll turn out skinny or fat.” link

What Does 200 Calories Look Like?

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

Photographs of 200 calories worth of dozens of foods. Lowest calorie density at the top of the page, increasing as you scroll down.

Word of the Day: Pseudomamma

Friday, January 19th, 2007 | Science, Word of the Day | Permalink | 7 Comments |

Pseudomamma - a false nipple.

On physical examination, the breasts were symmetrical having no nodes or retractions. In the plantar region of the patient’s left foot, there was a well-formed nipple was surrounded by areola and hair on the surface, measuring 4.0 cm in diameter, with no palpable nodes. The remaining physical examination was normal, including the mammary line.

Hat tip to jwz.

Previous WOTD - Plurale Tantum

Park Service Wasn’t Censored by Bush Administration

Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 | Media Behaving Badly, Science | Permalink | 10 Comments |

Taking the word of a press release, some reporters are reporting that park rangers in Grand Canyon aren’t allowed to discuss the age of the canyon, under orders from the fundamentalist-pandering Bush administration. Garry Trudeau picked up the idea for the Doonesbury comic above.

As Tim Blair demonstrates, the story ain’t true. It was also debunked by commentors at at SayUncle’s, who found statements on the NPS’s Web site that show the park service frankly discusses geological timescales.

The Grand Canyon is considered one of the natural wonders of the world largely because of its natural features. The exposed geologic strata - layer upon layer from the basement Vishnu schist to the capping Kaibab limestone - rise over a mile above the river, representing one of the most complete records of geological history that can be seen anywhere in the world. Geologic formations such as gneiss and schist found at the bottom of the Canyon date back 1,800 million years. This geologic incline creates a diversity of biotic communities, and five of the seven life zones are present in the park.

UPDATE: Jim Treacher re-imagines the Doonesbury strip.

AND ANOTHER: Tim Blair reports that Skeptic.com has retracted its story based on the press release.

Amazing Octopus Camouflage

Friday, January 12th, 2007 | Science | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Wow. Just wow.

Hat tip to BoingBoing.

History of Obstetrics and the Apgar Score

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 | Science | Permalink | No Comments |

Incredible New Yorker article on the history of the Apgar Score for newborns, told in the sweep of obstetrics history. Via a Marginal Revolutions thread pondering why much of medicine is art rather than science.

Among other things the article offers another reason for the increasing number of C-sections:

“Forceps deliveries are very difficult to teach—much more difficult than a C-section,” Bowes said. “With a C-section, you stand across from the learner. You can see exactly what the person is doing. You can say, ‘Not there. There.’ With the forceps, though, there is a feel that is very hard to teach.” Just putting the forceps on a baby’s head is tricky. You have to choose the right one for the shape of the mother’s pelvis and the size of the child’s head—and there are at least half a dozen types of forceps. You have to slide the blades symmetrically along the sides, travelling exactly in the space between the ears and the eyes and over the cheekbones. “For most residents, it took two or three years of training to get this consistently right,” he said. Then a doctor must apply forces of both traction and compression—pulling, his chapter explained, with an average of forty to seventy pounds of axial force and five pounds of fetal skull compression. “When you put tension on the forceps, you should have some sense that there is movement.” Too much force, and skin can tear, the skull can fracture, a fatal brain hemorrhage may result. “Some residents had a real feel for it,” Bowes said. “Others didn’t.”

…

But if medicine is an industry, responsible for the safest possible delivery of millions of babies each year, then the focus shifts. You seek reliability. You begin to wonder whether forty-two thousand obstetricians in the U.S. could really master all these techniques. You notice the steady reports of terrible forceps injuries to babies and mothers, despite the training that clinicians have received. After Apgar, obstetricians decided that they needed a simpler, more predictable way to intervene when a laboring mother ran into trouble. They found it in the Cesarean section.

Incidentally, when we had Natalie, she wouldn’t come out the last little bit. We were faced with having another C-section (which we were trying to avoid) and forceps (which we were afraid of). We chose a third option. The doctor put a rubber cap over the crown of the baby’s head, drew suction on the cap, and pulled Natalie out that way without any complications. In talking to my mother while we were making the decision, I learned my brother had been delivered with the same technique.

Another P.S. The first part of the article reminds me of the time I helped deliver a calf at Sunlight Gardens. The calf’s leg was bent and its knee caught on the mother’s pelvis, so that one leg was protruding less than the other. Taking telephone instructions from the vet we tied a rope around the short leg and pulled it straight. Then we re-tied the rope around both legs and two of us pulled the calf out of the mother, literally leaned back on our heels. Mom and calf both did just fine. They named the calf Jones.

Person I’m thinking of as I post this: Katie Allison-Granju, who is expecting a baby with her new husband. Congrats, you two.

Study Links Air Travel, Flu Spread

Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 | Science, Travel | Permalink | No Comments |

New study:

Scientists have found what they call the first real evidence that restricting air travel can delay the spread of flu — a finding that could influence government plans for battling the next influenza pandemic.

Air travel has long been suspected of playing a role in flu’s gradual spread around the globe each year, but yesterday, Boston researchers said they finally have documented it: The drop in air travel after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks seemed to delay that winter’s flu season by about two weeks.

“This is the first time that a study has been able to show a direct link between the numbers of people traveling and the rate of spread of a virus,” said John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Children’s Hospital of Boston, who led the research.

I haven’t read the study, but I tend to believe it based on the number of times I’ve gotten sick immediately after flying.

Science and Movies, Together Again

Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 | A&E, Science | Permalink | No Comments |

Via Kottke, The Biology of B-Movie Monsters, which explains why classic plots involving giant bus-sized ants and tiny fun-sized humans wouldn’t really work.

The really large terrestrial animals are all extinct, but we still have elephants and rhinos for a bit of insight into this problem. Think of the last time you went to the zoo. True, there was a fence around the elephant compound, but a moment’s reflection will convince you that the fence can’t be meant to keep the elephants in–all they would have to do is lean against the fence to bring it down. No, the fence is there to keep you out. What really keeps the elephants in is the dry moat around their compound; a fall of half a dozen feet would shatter the bones in the elephants’ legs and the elephants know that very well indeed. One of the major flaws of all the Kong movies is that the giant apes are just too active, leaping and crashing around as if they were monkeys, protected by their small size. Remember the elephants, and look on these antics with a bit more skepticism.

Evolution is More Than Natural Selection

Friday, July 14th, 2006 | Science | Permalink | 2 Comments |

From the AP via SayUncle Brutal Hugger:

A medium sized species of Darwin’s finch has evolved a smaller beak to take advantage of different seeds just two decades after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source.

Nifty, but it doesn’t advance Darwinism. What you’re seeing there is evidence of natural selection. The more evolved (pun intended!) creationists have already taken natural selection into account. Natural selection can be seen during the timespan of an individual in the form of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and (as artificial selection) in the breeding of domestic animals. Natural selection is simply undeniable to anyone with a brain.

As pointed out during my senior-level course on evolution, however, Darwin’s Origin of Species does a wonderful job of advancing the notion of natural selection, without ever proving how it could create the new species suggested in its title. That came about later, in part due to the modern synthesis of Darwinian natural selection with Mendelian genetics. (Genetics were unknown to people of Darwin’s era, but the discovery of the discrete inheritability of genetic characteristics enhances the predictive value of Darwin’s theory.)

The modern theory of the mechanism of evolution differs from Darwinism in three important respects:

1. It recognizes several mechanisms of evolution in addition to natural selection. One of these, random genetic drift, may be as important as natural selection.
2. It recognizes that characteristics are inherited as discrete entities called genes. Variation within a population is due to the presence of multiple alleles of a gene.
3. It postulates that speciation is (usually) due to the gradual accumulation of small genetic changes. This is equivalent to saying that macroevolution is simply a lot of microevolution.

In other words, the Modern Synthesis is a theory about how evolution works at the level of genes, phenotypes, and populations whereas Darwinism was concerned mainly with organisms, speciation and individuals. This is a major paradigm shift and those who fail to appreciate it find themselves out of step with the thinking of evolutionary biologists. Many instances of such confusion can be seen here in the newsgroups, in the popular press, and in the writings of anti-evolutionists.